Yo, Miss! (No. 42)

Political Content Bans in an Election Year?

If you haven’t realized it yet, it is 2024 and we are currently in an election year.

As a social studies teacher, I would be remiss not to remind everyone that overall civics knowledge is at an all-time low in the country. Meanwhile, our nation teeters on the brink of no longer claiming democracy status if Donald Trump wins.

Then, on Friday, Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, announced that Meta would stop proactively recommending political content on Instagram and Threads:

As Taylor Lorenz and Naomi Nix wrote in their Washington Post article, “Meta Turns Its Back On Politics Again, Angering Some News Creators,” this announcement alarmed “news and politics-focused creators and journalists gearing up for a crucial election year.”

I was honored to be included in this piece,

You have to read the whole article yourself, but my friend Keith Edwards makes the excellent point:

“[Meta] is trying to turn the world apolitical, which only helps authoritarian movements, at a time when authoritarian movements are on the rise in Western democracies.”

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Here are more of MY thoughts

Suppressing access to news on Meta (or as they call it “political content”) at a time when nearly “a dozen mainstream media companies are gutting staff & scrambling to rescue their struggling businesses,” according to Axios, is a terrible idea.

First of all, isn’t everything “political”?

This decision will simply silence most voices that have historically been cut out of the narrative.

Also, there’s an underlying assumption in this decision that most content creators on here have malicious intent with the posts we share here. Most of us are here to inform our followers and participate in meaningful discussions in the virtual public square.

Also, now that there are less traditional news outlets, we are helping fill that void. We are in an election year where the future of our democracy is on the line.

Making it harder for people to get their news is a disservice to all of us!

This is how I feel about all of this. I also lost my voice so it is even more frustrating because I can’t even scream about it!

More from me later this week. Until then, enjoy your weekend. Thanks for all your support.