"Why is it that these mistakes only happens to conservatives?" Fox News host Trace Gallagher asks Dennis Quaid, the star of the upcoming film Reagan. Until yesterday, Facebook had applied restrictions on any promotion of the film, which it later attributed to erroneous algorithms that, for some reason, flagged any content that mentioned former president Ronald Reagan. Facebook claimed to have resolved the issue, but Quaid's not buying the explanation.

"The last time I looked," Quaid jokes, "Reagan hasn't been on the ballot in forty years. Not only that," he added, "he's not even eligible to run. having served two terms." Not to mention, of course, that Reagan's been dead for two decades:

So why is Facebook restricting content that mentions a famous historical figure like the American president that ended the Cold War? Do they restrict promotion of material that mentions Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton? JFK or LBJ? Quaid challenged Facebook to answer for similar content that has run without incident on it platform:

“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.”

Newsweek dug into these claims, and found out that the interference may be worse than even Quaid suggests. There seems to have been a concerted effort to kneecap the promotion of the Reagan biopic in ways that "algorithm" doesn't explain:

Quaid's remarks coincide with a letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg, the chairman and CEO of Facebook parent, Meta Platforms, that outline "numerous problems" marketers say they have had when trying to post or "boost" content related to Reagan. 

The letter from Eric McClellan, the director of digital marketing for the film, says that the most "egregious" example consists of a post that contains the title of the movie and an image of Quaid along with a quote from the 40th president. 

"Don't let anyone tell you that America's best days are behind her—that the American spirit has been vanquished," reads the quote. "We've seen it triumph too often in our lives not to believe it now." 

Facebook allowed the post—but refused to let the marketers "boost" it by way of a paid advertisement, according to the letter to Zuckerberg. 

Also, video clips of Quaid discussing the movie on TV and podcasts that were posted to the Reagan movie's Facebook page caused the social media platform to temporarily suspend the account on at least two occasions, according to notices reviewed by Newsweek.

Give Newsweek some credit for a deep dive on this issue, as well as Fox News, because they seem to be the only media outlets asking Facebook to explain themselves. A search on Google for news items on 'Facebook Reagan ads' in the past week shows Newsweek to be the only MSM outlet covering the issue. There are stories at Breitbart, Newsmax, and the Daily Wire, but none at all on other Protection Racket Media outlets -- not even the Hollywood Reporter or Variety, the two main entertainment-industry news orgs. 

Big Tech interference and Protection Racket Media silence on such efforts to block conservative thought from the public square are two main reasons we keep urging readers to help us compete independently in the public square. Quaid warns everyone that Facebook intended to "censor[] the free flow of ideas," apparently by building topic-related throttling mechanisms into their code so as to keep fingerprints off of their Big Brother tactics. 

The only way to keep pushing back against these Orwellian tactics is to support platforms that refuse to comply with them. any of our readers have joined the fight as part of our VIP and VIP Gold membership, and they have been crucial to our operations as an independent platform and the ability to debate all of the issues honestly. We also produce some great exclusive content for our members, including podcasts and deep-dive analyses from our staff as well as outside contributors.

We talk about this more often now because we see the current crisis in media more clearly than ever. Join us in the fight. Become a HotAir VIP member today and use promo code FAKENEWS to receive a 50% discount on your membership.

Dennis Quaid observes that this crisis is now upon us. “Like the old Soviet Union," he wondered, "are we turning into a country of tech oligarchs who control the platform of groupthink to silence the individual or ‘other’ groups?”

Only if we allow it -- and don't stand together to oppose it.