Meta Suspended a Senate Candidate's Instagram Mid-Rally, With No Explanation
Why Did Meta Suspend a US Senate Candidate's Instagram in the Middle of a Rally?
Days before the midterms, Meta took down Florida Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon's Latino outreach Instagram page while she was hosting a get-out-the-vote rally in Osceola County, home to a large Puerto Rican community. The account came back an hour later, but Meta never explained why it vanished. The incident follows accusations that Meta suppressed Lula's campaign in Brazil, shut down the No Kings account, and blocked Serbian pages critical of President Vučić.
This page is a critical communication tool for reaching Latino voters and mobilizing our community. With just seven days until Election Day, every minute matters.
- Verdex
There was this brief moment where star trek broke my suspension of disbelief. How is there not social media and the Internet in the star trek future? Sure they didn't have it when the show was written, but there still felt to be a disconnect.
Now I think, "how can there be a star trek future while we have social media and the Internet?"
Honestly, it's probably what started the eugenics war.
- zug_zug
It's getting harder to believe this is accidental when it's 3 leftist situations in a row in such a short time.
- valuegram
If you have a strong reaction to this, and had the opposite reaction when social media lockouts were used against the other party, I’d suggest a new approach: decide where you stand on the tool/weapon based on foundational principles, regardless of whether it’s currently being wielded by people you agree or disagree with.
- aftbit
>“We are calling on Meta to immediately restore the page and provide an explanation for its removal,” she continued. “Voters deserve access to critical election information, especially in these final days.”
>Nixon reported that the account was back up an hour later.
- dirck-norman
This article is bait.
The account was created only 1 week earlier and was flagged as a campaign impersonation account.
Whether that's honest and truthful, we can only know if Meta is transparent. But, not including that information shows what the article's intent is.
> "During campaign season, we pay particular attention to accounts that could be impersonating candidates or campaigns and misleading voters. The account in question was created only a week and a half ago, so our systems automatically and mistakenly assessed it to be impersonating the Nixon for Senate campaign. The account was restored on Tuesday evening after three hours."
- phyzix5761
They randomly suspend small business accounts too for no reason.
- bko
I love the main character syndrome on display. You have this regional Florida race, not particularly competitive. They do campaign events all day every day. They see an issue with their Instagram account which gets fixed an hour later and they immediately think it's Zuck behind the scenes in his war room following her race and rally with a big red button on his desk to cut her off at the crucial window. Incredible stuff.
- lapcat
I've been reading the book "Careless People," and I came upon these passages just yesterday, referring to Mark Zuckerberg in 2015:
> Mark opens the meeting by talking admiringly about what he calls “street fighter tactics” that Uber is employing against politicians around the world and how successful they’ve been.
> He launches into a spiel about Empereror Augustus, his favorite emperor, who led the transformation of Rome from a republic to an empire.
> He wants to establish a team within Facebook to figure out how to build the tools that will use the algorithm and platform to pressure adversaries, including politicians who oppose us, to bolster the policy team.