According to Meta, it is working quickly to resolve an issue with Instagram that causes users who search for “Democrat” or “Democrats” to see a “results hidden” banner.
Some social media users have accused the corporation of political prejudice, pointing out that the problem has been present since Monday’s inauguration of President Donald Trump, whom Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of Meta, attended.
Although social media specialist Matt Navarra told the BBC that it was “embarrassing” for Instagram anyway, he suggested it was more likely to be a technical issue.
“In a hyper-partisan environment, even unintentional errors like this can escalate into accusations of partisanship,” he stated.
“If these issues are not resolved quickly they risk fuelling conspiracy theories and damaging Meta’s reputation.”
The hashtag “Republican” yields 3.3 million entries on the social networking site, yet users who type “#Democrat” or “#Democrats” get no results.
An error message stating “we’ve hidden these results” appears when users manually search for “Democrats” on Instagram instead of clicking on a hashtag.
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“Results for the term you searched for may contain sensitive content,” it states.
Searching for “Republicans” rather than “Republican” yields fewer results as well.
In a statement to the BBC, Meta said, “We are aware of an error affecting hashtags across the political spectrum and we are working quickly to resolve it.”
Zuckerberg and Trump
Mr. Zuckerberg’s attendance at Trump’s reelection is the most recent in a string of actions that have brought him and other internet executives closer to the new Republican government.
Trump’s reelection was cited by Mr. Zuckerberg as the “cultural tipping point” for Meta’s January announcement of a significant overhaul of its policy regarding the moderation of content on its platforms.
Sir Nick Clegg has been replaced as head of Meta’s global affairs by well-known Republican Joel Kaplan.
In November, Mr. Zuckerberg paid the US president a visit at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and Meta donated to a Tump fund.
Trump and his supporters have already attacked Met, accusing the team of stifling a right-wing viewpoint and even threatening to put the Meta boss in jail.
But Trump claimed at a press conference that he was impressed by Zuckerberg’s move to fire fact checkers and that Meta has “come a long way” in response.
SOURCE: BBC
