Facebook faces heat as marketers, fans, and star actor claim Reagan movie censorship

Marketers, fans and even the star of the movie Reagan say Facebook is again blocking promotion of the biopic just weeks after the social media giant said it  made a “mistake” when it censored some earlier ads.

A few weeks after that mistake, marketers tried to pay Facebook $3,000 to “boost” video of journalist-podcaster Megyn Kelly encouraging her audience to see the film, which earned more than $23 million at the box office in its first two weeks in U.S. theaters.

Another recent incident involved Facebook apparently removing a post from a fan announcing: “The REAGAN Movie premieres in theaters August 30th. Tickets on sale now.”

In addition, a Facebook user wrote Facebook is "apparently unwilling to promote the Reagan movie. Despite repeated attempts to post about it, a notice was received stating the post cannot be shared.”

While it is typical for Hollywood to market movies via Facebook, the disruption of the plan to promote Reagan is highly unusual, even when it comes to films about political figures. There are no reports of Facebook, for example, preventing posts or ads about Southside with You, about Barack and Michelle Obama; Darkest Hour, about Winston Churchill; nor many other biographical feature films.

Facebook’s decision follows a similar one a month earlier when it rejected an ad featuring star Dennis Quaid as Ronald Reagan above an inspirational quote from the 40th president reading: “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.”

Also earlier, Facebook did not allow marketers to boost video clips of Quaid promoting the movie on the Fox News Channel and on podcasts hosted by Jordan Peterson and Patrick Bet-David, and the company, part of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms, temporarily suspended the Reagan page.

It eventually reversed all of those decisions, but marketers say the problems have sprung up once again, and images included in this report suggest that they are correct.

Some have also taken to X, the social-media firm run by Elon Musk that used to be known as Twitter, to complain that Facebook is not allowing them to post positive mentions about the Reagan film.

Quaid told this reporter that Facebook’s actions amount to “censorship,” adding that: “Freedom of expression and a free market are what Americans are known for. Reagan said that freedoms that we take for granted can be lost in a generation.”

Last month, Facebook told this reporter that the ads for Reagan were rejected “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. This was a mistake and the restriction on the ads has been lifted.”

Facebook did not say why posts that were not paid ads were problematic, nor did it address the temporary suspension of the Reagan page. Facebook also did not respond to this reporter’s request to explain why the more recent posts and ads were also removed or rejected. 

The initial bouts of “censorship” also earned Facebook a rebuke from Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tennessee, who posted to X: “Even if these are truly mistakes, they show the problem with Facebook’s censorship policy – even Facebook can’t properly implement it, in multiple ways here. This is not a partisan issue – all Americans should be alarmed by censorship. Congress should get to the bottom of it.”

The most recent rejections prompted a second letter to Zuckerberg from Eric McClellan, director of digital marketing for the movie.

“Facebook has once again rejected our attempt to boost a post, and rejected our appeal of that decision,” reads the letter dated Sept. 9. “Your company’s behavior has seriously damaged our attempts to communicate with our fans and share news about our film with the American public and this behavior is especially disappointing in light of your company’s recent public admission of error and promise to correct.”

The Reagan movie also stars Jon Voight as a Russian spy and Dan Lauria as former House Speaker Tip O’Neill. While Voight and Quaid have said they are supporting Donald Trump for president, Lauria, famous for his role as the dad in the TV series, The Wonder Years, told this reporter that there is “no way in hell” he’d vote for Trump, the GOP presidential nominee.

The dustup over the rejection of ads and posts promoting the Reagan movie comes as Zuckerberg acknowledges that Facebook has made errors in the past that critics say amount to a bias against Republicans and in favor of Democrats.

In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, Zuckerberg said that senior officials representing President Joe Biden “repeatedly pressured” Facebook to “censor” content about Hunter Biden’s laptop and controversial COVID-19 protocols. 

“When we saw a New York Post story reporting on corruption allegations involving then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s family, we sent that story to fact-checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply,” the Meta CEO wrote.

“It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story,” he said.

Zuckerberg also assured Jordan that Facebook would not be repeating similar mistakes, and wrote that he would not be spending so-called “Zuckerbucks” during the upcoming election for president, while four years ago he spent $400 million to make voting easier in select districts.

“I know that some people believe this work benefitted one party over the other,” Zuckerberg wrote. “My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another – or to even appear to be playing a role. So I don’t plan on making a similar contribution this cycle.”