Facebook admitted wrongdoing after Dennis Quaid exposed the platform for censoring posts about his upcoming Ronald Reagan biopic.
“This happened because our automated systems mistakenly determined that content about Ronald Reagan required prior authorization in accordance with our policies for ads about Social Issues, Elections or Politics,” a Facebook spokesperson said. “This was a mistake and the restriction on the ads has been lifted.”
This censorship occurred after Meta — Facebook’s parent company — announced earlier this year it would be limiting political content across its platforms to play less of a role in this year’s elections. It took this step in a controversial way by introducing a setting that restricted political content from reaching users unless they followed the person who made the post. This setting, however, was on by default and added to Meta’s sites without any notification to users.
“It seems to be automated [to censor conservatives] for some reason…this happened several times actually, and we were suspended for two days in a row…But last time I heard, Reagan hasn’t been on the ballot for 40 years ...”
