Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg faces backlash amid Facebook’s reported blocking of democratic content … [+]
Meta, the tech giant behind Facebook and Instagram, is facing growing criticism over a series of platform issues affecting political content linked to Democratic Party terms and hashtags, raising questions from critics about its relationship with the administration. Cloud Trump.
Users across Meta’s platforms are reporting two distinct issues — Instagram’s blocking of Democrat-related search terms and Facebook’s unexpected behavior regarding the presidential account in the aftermath. Both situations have emerged during a sensitive period of political transition, leading to increased scrutiny of the company’s content moderation practices.
On Instagram, for example, users trying to search for “Democrats” are presented with a message saying “we’ve hidden these results,” with the platform stating that “results for the term you searched for may contain sensitive content.” according to the BBC. Mashable independently verified the issue, confirming that the same message appears whether you access Instagram via mobile or desktop platforms. Messages and restrictions appear when users search for either the term itself or related hashtags.
Meta has acknowledged these issues, giving a statement to the BBC – “We are aware of an error affecting hashtags across the political spectrum and are working quickly to resolve it.” However, social media expert Matt Navarra suggests that timing creates special challenges for the company. “In a hyper-partisan environment, even inadvertent mistakes like this can escalate into allegations of partisanship,” Navarra told the BBC. “If these issues are not resolved quickly, they risk fueling conspiracy theories and damaging Meta’s reputation.”
Hashtag limitations extend beyond basic terms. TechIssuesToday reports that searches for “#DNC” also return no results, while searches for “#RNC” work normally. The site independently verified these restrictions, documenting that searches for “#Democrat” and “#DNC” trigger the “sensitive content” warning message.
Elsewhere, Facebook users are also reporting changes to their account’s following lists, though the situation requires careful discernment. As TechIssuestoday explains, most cases involve automatic switching of the POTUS account — a standard process that occurs during presidential transitions. When President Trump took office, users following the POTUS account saw it updated to reflect the new administration. However, some users have reported on the site that attempts to unfollow these accounts have proved ineffective, with blocking appearing as the only successful removal method.
Changes to Meta
The policy changes recently announced by Meta mark a fundamental shift in the way it deals with users … [+]
These technical issues coincide with broader changes to the Meta. Mark Zuckerberg attended Trump’s inauguration (along with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk), and also donated $1 million to President Trump’s inaugural fund. The relationship between Meta and the incoming administration marks a shift from previous tensions, in which Trump previously criticized the platform for alleged censorship of conservative voices. Recently, however, the newly inaugurated president has praised Zuckerberg’s decision regarding fact-checkers, stating in a press conference that Meta had come “a long way.”
Those policy changes, announced earlier this month, saw a fundamental shift in Meta’s content moderation approach, abandoning its system of independent fact-checkers for its US platforms. During his announcement, Zuckerberg stated that third-party moderators were “too politically biased” and stated that it was “time to get back to our roots around free expression.”
The move, which mirrors X’s community annotation system approach to content moderation, specifically affects how Facebook and Instagram handle potentially fraudulent content in the United States, though Meta says it has “no immediate plans” to remove third party fact checkers in the UK. or the EU. Earlier this month, Joel Kaplan, a long-time Republican lobbyist for Meta, was also chosen to replace Sir Nick Clegg as Meta’s global affairs chief. He stated that the company’s previous reliance on independent moderators was “well-intentioned”, but claimed that it too often resulted in censorship. Zuckerberg also acknowledged that the change represents a “tradeoff,” noting that it would mean catching less problematic content while reducing the accidental removal of innocent posts and accounts.
Meta’s announcement has since sparked notable user backlash, with NBC News reporting a sharp increase in Google searches for deleting Facebook and Instagram accounts. The week-long “Lights Out Meta” boycott campaign, scheduled for January 19-26, has gathered momentum, with REM’s Michael Stipe among the prominent figures calling for users to temporarily abandon Meta platforms. However, those leaving still represent a small fraction of Meta’s sizeable US user base, which includes roughly 170 million Instagram accounts and nearly 100 million WhatsApp users, many of whom remain connected to the platforms through family, professional or business obligations.
For now, technical issues affecting Democrat-related content remain active. While Meta works to address these issues, users continue to use workarounds, such as locking accounts to prevent unwanted stalking and finding alternative methods to access restricted content. Meta’s handling of these issues could be crucial to maintaining user trust during this period of political transition.
