Facebook Allegedly Censors This Movie about Republican Darling President

The star of a new movie about the late President Ronald Reagan is accusing Facebook of targeting the movie.

Actor Dennis Quaid and the marketers for a soon-to-be-released film Reagan accused Meta-owned Facebook of suppressing advertising and promotion of the movie. Newsweek claimed Facebook told them that it “may have been” censorship by mistake, not on purpose.

Quaid, who plays Reagan in the movie, wrote in an email to Newsweek, “Facebook is once again censoring the free flow of ideas, deciding what's best for us to see and hear; only this time it's throttling advertising and promotion for my movie about Ronald Reagan.” 

MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider responded to Facebook’s censorship, “Have you noticed that these ‘mistakes’ and ‘glitches’ by the Big Tech platforms always favor the left? But these glitches aren’t always about limiting conservatives’ actions. Just the other day, Google claimed that there was a glitch that allowed Kamala Harris to attach fake headlines to the logos of media outlets, to her great benefit. The one consistent thing is that Big Tech always favors the left.” 

MRC Free Speech America Director Michael Morris agreed. Morris said, “Here they go again. Notice how Big Tech's censorship mistakes invariably seem to always be in one direction: in support of the left and against the right.”

The Reagan film’s digital marketing director Eric McClellan also wrote a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg citing “numerous problems” when trying to advertise Reagan on Facebook. 

For instance, Newsweek explained Facebook prevented a post from being a paid ad; the post showed Quaid from the movie and a Reagan quote that read: “Don't let anyone tell you that America's best days are behind her—that the American spirit has been vanquished. We've seen it triumph too often in our lives not to believe it now.” 

Facebook also reportedly issued temporary suspensions to the movie’s Facebook page for clips of Quaid talking about the film. The platform claimed the content “mentions politicians or is about sensitive issues that could influence public opinion, how people vote and may impact the outcome of an election or pending legislation.”

Quaid suggested the censorship is part of a larger Facebook strategy of election interference, and asked, “Like the old Soviet Union—are we turning into a country of tech oligarchs who control the platform of groupthink to silence the individual or 'other' groups?”

He added, “My challenge to Facebook is to ask if any of these tactics were used against other recent presidential biopics like Lincoln, LBJ, or Southside with You, a film about President Barack Obama, which was also released during an election year?” 

Facebook reportedly gave Newsweek a vague assertion that the censorship could possibly have been a mistake. Newsmax reported that Facebook said, “This happened because our automated systems mistakenly determined that content about President Reagan required prior authorization in accordance with our policies for ads about Social Issues, Elections or Politics.”