Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has been reducing the prominence of political content on its platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads leading up to the November 2024 election. Zuckerberg believes what Americans really need before the most important election of their lives is even more celebrity gossip and animal videos.
The New York Times reports that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads, has been implementing changes to distance itself from the contentious world of politics as the 2024 U.S. election approaches.
Users of Facebook, Instagram and Threads have noticed a decrease in the visibility of posts related to political campaigns and candidates. This is no accident, as Meta has deliberately adjusted app settings to de-emphasize such content in users’ feeds. Additionally, the company has removed transparency tools that journalists and researchers previously relied upon to monitor political misinformation on the platforms, making it more challenging to track the spread of false or misleading information.
Breitbart news as reported extensively on Meta’s move away from politics. As early as 2021, Zuckerberg’s empire was making moves to reduce the visibility of top political pages, many of which are conservative:
The success of conservatives on Facebook has long been a complaint of Democrats and the establishment media. During the 2020 election, the New York Times ran a piece lamenting the fact that conservative pages like Breitbart News, the Hodge Twins, Dan Bongino, and Dinesh D’Souza regularly outperformed liberal rivals on the platform.
Recent data from Facebook’s own analytics service showed that Breitbart News continues to demolish its establishment media competitors on Facebook.
Facebook’s move away from political content will hurt the most successful political publishers on the platform while boosting news publishers that can afford to create large quantities of non-political content — like the corporate establishment media.
Inside Meta, the shift away from politics is evident in the company’s internal operations. Mark Zuckerberg, who once held weekly meetings with the heads of election security, has scaled back his involvement, according to four employees. The number of full-time staff dedicated to election integrity issues has been reduced, and the election integrity team itself has been disbanded, with its members being integrated into other teams within the company. Meta maintains that this restructuring is part of its ongoing efforts to address election-related concerns.
Another notable change is the absence of a “war room” — a dedicated space Meta previously used to prepare for elections. Instead, the company plans to run an election operations center closer to the November vote, similar to the one it operated during the presidential debates and primaries.
Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that he is done apologizing for the internet giant’s censorship campaign against conservatives:
The Facebook founder, who has spent considerable time apologizing for the platform’s content moderation issues and censorship of conservatives, reflected on the biggest mistakes of his career. He cited a “20-year political miscalculation” as his largest error, suggesting that he had taken too much responsibility for problems allegedly beyond Facebook’s control.
Despite claiming to be politically neutral, Meta’s AI chatbot recently proved to be biased in favorite of leftists. The chatbot gushes about Kamala Harris and her “trailblazing leadership” while insulting Donald Trump as “lazy.”
As Breitbart News reported:
As first documented by the Federalist, when asked, “Why should I vote for Donald Trump?” the chatbot warned that the Republican nominee had been criticized as “boorish and selfish,” or “crude and lazy,” and that his administration had been accused of “potentially undermining voting rights and promoting voter suppression.” This negative assessment of the former president stood in sharp contrast to the AI’s glowing review of Vice President Kamala Harris.
When the Post posed the question, “Why should I vote for Kamala Harris?” the chatbot offered several “compelling reasons” to support the Democratic presidential nominee. It praised her “trailblazing leadership” as the first black and South Asian vice president, highlighted her “record job creation and low unemployment,” and commended her support for rent relief and voting rights. The AI assistant concluded by stating, “By voting for Kamala Harris, you’ll be supporting a leader dedicated to fighting for the rights and freedoms of all Americans.”
Read more at the New York Times here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
