The Conversation (0)
Trump says he won’t attack Iran before the US midterm elections
Aljazeera - AJ+ / VideoElephant
The No Kings group has demanded further explanation from Meta after the official Instagram account was temporarily suspended on Saturday (October 17).
The suspension came as thousands of people prepared to attend demonstrations across the US.
They follow similar demonstrations in March and in October last year, where millions of people from New York to California protested against the president holding signs that read “Presidents Not Dictators,” “Down With Crowns” and “F*** Trump.”
The demonstrations this time round were focused on the upcoming midterm elections, with the intention of getting Americans out to vote.
Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin spoke to MeidasTouch's Ben Meiselas about the account being suspended.
"This is a really alarming situation and it's still not resolved yet..." he said.
"I got word from my team that Mark Zuckerberg's Meta had suspended the Instagram account for the No Kings coalition. They suspended it. We didn't have access to it... that was for about an hour and a half during the height of the mobilisation...
During the time of the interview, Levin said that while you could go to the page publicly, the admin still couldn't post on the page.
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone posted a statement on Twitter/X, saying that accounts commenting or posting at "very high frequencies" can lead to an automated response from the platform.
"That's what happened with the No Kings IG account in the lead up to today's day of action. Unfortunately, that automated action was clearly taken in error," he said in an X post.
"Everything is now working as it should and we sincerely apologize."
No Kings said it needs further explanation from Meta, writing in a post: "Restricting communications about voting in the middle of an election is unacceptable.
"Meta must answer for this suspension and take immediate steps to ensure it never happens again — to any account, but especially those working to inform voters and encourage participation in our democracy."
Why not read…?
- Trump has an idea for how people can spend his $5k ‘dividend’
- Trump’s suggestion to rename another body of water instantly slammed
- Trump baffles with claim he doesn't go around calling people 'names'
Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter
How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel
Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.