Expect This Election to Play Differently than 2020 on Social Media
Meta and X have indicated they went too far on content moderation in 2020, which is the opposite of what many experts on social media manipulation want to hear.
Heading into the US presidential election four years ago, Facebook and Twitter instituted substantial policies to combat misleading political content, touted their investments into content moderation and promised to do all they could to avoid a free-for-all on their platforms. Just before Election Day in 2020, Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg told investors the election would be a test of the company’s yearslong effort to protect the political process. “Election integrity is and will be an ongoing challenge,” he said. “And I’m proud of the work we’ve done here.”
When then-President Donald Trump used his social media accounts to sow discord and his supporters did resort to violence on Jan. 6, 2021, both companies banned him. Since then, however, each has reinstated Trump’s accounts. They’ve also moved away from the approach they took in 2020, albeit each in their own ways. Zuckerberg has tried to reduce the prominence of political content on services owned by Meta Platforms Inc., while Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X, has mostly rejected content moderation and has gone all-in for Trump.