Meta is working to resolve a technical issue on Instagram where searches for “Democrat” or “Democrats” display a “results hidden” message.
The timing of this problem, occurring after President Donald Trump’s inauguration which Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg attended, has led some users to suggest political bias. Meta has denied these claims, stating that the technical issue affects various hashtags, including some Republican-related terms.
Social media expert Matt Navarra describes the situation as “embarrassing” for Instagram. “In a hyper-partisan environment, even unintentional errors like this can escalate into accusations of partisanship,” he noted. “If these issues are not resolved quickly they risk fuelling conspiracy theories and damaging Meta’s reputation.”
Currently, searching “#Democrat” or “#Democrats” shows no results, while “#Republican” displays 3.3 million posts. Manual searches for “Democrats” show a message stating “we’ve hidden these results” and warning about potentially sensitive content. Searches for “Republicans” also yield limited results compared to “Republican.”
Meta acknowledged the problem in a statement to the BBC: “We’re aware of an error affecting hashtags across the political spectrum and we are working quickly to resolve it.”
The incident occurs amid Zuckerberg’s increasing alignment with the incoming Republican administration. Meta recently announced significant changes to its content moderation policies, with Zuckerberg citing Trump’s re-election as a “cultural tipping point.” The company appointed Joel Kaplan, a prominent Republican, to replace Sir Nick Clegg as global affairs chief.
Zuckerberg’s recent activities include a visit to Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November and Meta’s contribution to a Trump fund. While Trump and his supporters previously accused Meta of censoring conservative voices and threatened Zuckerberg with imprisonment, Trump’s stance has shifted. Following Meta’s decision to remove fact checkers, Trump expressed approval at a news conference, stating Meta had “come a long way.”
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