Donald Trump Jr. believes Instagram is interfering with the upcoming U.S. presidential election by limiting political content on the social media app.
On March 12, Donald Trump established himself as the presumptive Republican presidential candidate for 2024 with a string of primary victories which gave him enough declared delegates to formally clinch the GOP nomination at the party’s national convention in July.
Now Donald Trump Jr. has implied that Instagram could negatively impact his father’s chance of winning the presidential election. This is because, as part of an initiative Instagram announced in February, the popular social media app owned by Meta Platforms announced that it would no longer “proactively recommend political content from accounts you don’t follow.” That means users should still see political content from those they follow but Instagram has automatically set the “political content” control to “limit” on other accounts.
Donald Trump Jr. reshared a post on X (formerly Twitter) from user @_johnnymaga who had shared a screenshot of an article discussing the fact that Instagram is limiting political content. “Wouldn’t be an election year without Zuckerberg pulling his shenanigans,” they captioned the post.
Tasos Katopodis/Matt Cardy/Getty Images
“ELECTION INTERFERANCE! [sic],” Donald Trump Jr. added.
Newsweek emailed Meta and Donald Trump’s campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung for comment.
At the time of writing, Donald Trump Jr.’s post had been viewed 1 million times, with thousands of people taking to the comments to share their thoughts.
A variety of people agreed with his post, with one person writing: “What did everyone think was happening, when they were having ‘blackouts’….they were updating policies/algorithms to interfere in the election…”
“I cancelled my Instagram few months ago!!” someone else wrote.
A third person added: “The greatest comeback story in history has begun! #Trump2024.”
However, others disagreed—and corrected Donald Trump Jr.’s spelling.
“So you’ll be leaving all the Meta platforms immediately? Ever hear the phrase ‘put your money where your mouth is?’ If you have any money left, try that,” one X user commented.
“It’s interference, not interferance. Try spell check,” someone else said.
“Sure, Jan,” wrote another.
According to eight recent polls, President Joe Biden leads former President Donald Trump in a contest between the two candidates.
The surveys give Biden a slight lead on a national basis ranging from one to three points, though it isn’t clear if it would give him an overall victory due to the Electoral College.
A Mainstream Research/Florida Atlantic University survey of 1,053 American adults conducted between March 15 and 17 found that among likely voters, 47 percent, would vote for Biden “if the election for president were held today” against 45 percent for Trump. Four percent said they would vote for “another candidate,” while four percent said they were “undecided.”
Ipsos and Reuters conducted a poll of 3,356 registered voters between March 7 and 13 that found 39 percent would vote for Biden “if the 2024 election were today,” against 38 percent for Trump, with 11 percent for “some other candidate.” The remainder were either unsure or not voting.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.