Professional kvetchmeister Taylor Lorenz of the Washington Post is once again whining about any hint of the social-media giants moving away from censorship or aggressively recommending "mainstream" media reports with a leftist agenda.
In this case, Taylor and her Post colleague Naomi Nix are over the news that Meta (which everyone still calls Facebook) has decided to stop proactively recommending political content on Instagram or their Twitter-knockoff called Threads. Most people would greet the news that Meta is not shoving its biases down people's throats via recommendations to be a good thing. But not Taylor Lorenz as you can see in Saturday's whine encased in an article, "Meta turns its back on politics again, angering some news creators."
Which "creators" are worried about "a crucial election year"? The Left, which cannot be identified.
Meta announced on Friday it would stop proactively recommending political content on Instagram or its upstart text-based app Threads, alarming news and politics-focused creators and journalists gearing up for a crucial election year.
While users will still be allowed to follow accounts that post about political and social issues, accounts posting such content will not be recommended and content posted by nonpolitical accounts that is political in nature or includes social commentary also won’t be recommended, Meta said.
Oh, the horror! The absolute horror of people on Meta platforms being able to choose for themselves what political news to read! It makes it so much harder to "fortify" yet another election.
Keith Edwards, a Democratic political strategist and content creator, said he’s met with the White House twice recently and urged officials there to join Threads, but now he regrets the effort he put into the platform.
“The whole value-add for social media, for political people, is that you can reach normal people who might not otherwise hear a message that they need to hear, like, abortion is on the ballot in Florida, or voting is happening today,” he said. “There’s TV ads, but who watches TV anymore? Most people are on their phones, and Meta apps are where most people hang out.”
Sniff! All that work for naught! A missed opportunity to hype the Democrat narrative where people might not want to see it.
The change outraged some news and political creators, many of whom turned to Instagram’s Threads app after having their X accounts affected by Elon Musk, who removed their blue verified check marks and banned some progressive activists and journalists from the site.
It also seems to have outraged a certain tear-shedding proponent of social media censorship at the Washington Post.
The changes are likely to have less impact on conservative creators, said Emily Amick, who is followed by 133,000 accounts on Instagram. Many large right-wing content creators are expert at evading restrictions by not posting overtly about politics, she said.
“There’s a lot of money behind right wing influencers, it’s a really robust ecosystem that’s made to succeed on today’s internet, and these changes will only help them further,” she said. She said she’s already seen her view count on posts drop when she speaks about politically charged topics such as abortion and guns.
When you see the term "right-wing" in a story about social media that is a good tell that the person using it is as hostile to any relaxation of censorship as Taylor Lorenz who is notorious for melting down over any hint of what she considers to be an intolerable breath of freedom.
