Actor Dennis Quaid, alongside the marketing team for the movie “Reagan,'” has accused Facebook of hampering their promotional efforts for the soon-to-be-released biopic.
The accusations come in the wake of alleged restrictions and impediments encountered by the film’s marketers while attempting to enhance the visibility of their content related to Reagan on Facebook. The social networking giant has commented on these allegations, suggesting there may have been an error on their part.
Quaid imparted his frustrations to Newsweek through an email, expressing his belief that Facebook’s actions amounted to a blatant censorship of ideas and an obstruction to the promotional campaign for his upcoming movie.
He indicated that such undertakings were harmful as they stymied the free circulation of ideas. Quaid’s sentiments were echoed in a letter sent to Meta Platforms CEO and Chairman, Mark Zuckerberg, which chronicled the issues the promotion team faced trying to bolster their Reagan-related content on Facebook.
Among the chief complaints raised in the letter, penned by the film’s digital marketing director, Eric McClellan, was an instance of apparent censorship, where a simple post featuring the movie’s title, a picture of Quaid, and a quote from the former president did not pass Facebook’s promotional criteria.
Although the post was allowed on the platform, paid advertising of the post was refused by Facebook. The social media behemoth tried to justify its decision on the grounds that the post included mentions of politicians and sensitive issues that could potentially sway public opinion or the outcomes of elections.
“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?” Quaid asks in his written statement.
