Meta says it is working quickly to resolve the problem, which has prompted accusations of bias on social media.

Summary

Meta’s Instagram faced criticism after searches for “Democrat” or “Democrats” displayed a “results hidden” message, while “Republican” returned 3.3 million posts.

The issue emerged after Donald Trump’s inauguration, which Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg attended.

Meta attributed the problem to a technical error affecting political hashtags and promised a quick fix.

Critics, however, flagged concerns over perceived political bias, especially as Meta has recently shifted content moderation policies and aligned closer to the Republican administration, including donations to Trump and appointing a Republican as global affairs chief.

  • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
    116·
    19 hours ago

    The dispute was primarily over standing.

    The lawsuit centers on “jawboning,” a term used to describe informal efforts by government officials to persuade someone outside the government to take action. In this case, the plaintiffs – two states with Republican attorneys general and several individuals whose social media posts were removed or downgraded – challenged the Biden administration’s efforts in 2021 to restrict misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine. They argued that the administration’s actions had violated social media users’ rights to free speech.

    Amy Coney Barrett claims the censorship happened before any communication with the White House or the CDC…

    Barrett acknowledged, “Facebook was targeting her pages before almost all of its communications with the White House and the CDC, which weakens the inference that her subsequent restrictions are likely traceable to ‘government-coerced enforcement’ of Facebook’s policies.”

    But as Samuel Alito notes…

    “[f]or months in 2021 and 2022, a coterie of officials at the highest levels of the Federal Government continuously harried and implicitly threatened Facebook with potentially crippling consequences if it did not comply with their wishes about the suppression of certain COVID-19-related speech. Not surprisingly,” Alito concluded, “Facebook repeatedly yielded.”

    While standing was denied, and the censorship may have happened before the White House requested it, it’s clear the admin wanted this to happen. Otherwise the communications over this stuff wouldn’t have taken place.