Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, attended to Trump’s inauguration and soon Instagram was showing no search results for ‘democrats’. How scared should we be?

First X (formally known as Twitter) decided to replace fact-checking with ‘community notes’ and soon Meta decided to follow the example.  The Guardian wrote an article quoting Mark Zuckerberg’s (CEO of Meta) announcement about getting rid of ‘biased’ fact checkers and therefore claims to reduce governmental censorship.  

Not a lot later after this announcement, my Instagram feed filled up with videos where people tried to search ‘democrats’ on the platform, and no results were coming up. Is this now ‘reducing the censorship’? 

BBC reported Meta claiming that search results for ‘democrats’ disappearing from Instagram was just an error and not a politically biased issue. Personally, I have a hard time believing it. I think this was Meta and the leading political party in the US showing their power. And that’s scary. That’s why I think we should be running. Fast. 

I feel like social media managed to create a really great illusion for all of its users around the world, that we are all somehow in charge. I think we were thinking that now when everyone has a voice, we can influence the world order, and this freedom of speech cannot be taken away. 

Also, I think everyone was so busy worrying about TikTok and its connections to the Chinese government that we forgot to worry about all the other apps and their possible connections to the US government. Or the fact that some of our most used platforms are all in the hands of one tech billionaire. 

Only Meta alone has so much power that if they decide to shut everything down, our sociality would face a crisis. Imagine your everyday life without Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Threads. I would have a lot of difficulties talking daily with a big part of my family and would for sure lose connection with some friends that live further away. In the storm of anxiety over this new world order, I deleted all possible Meta apps for a full week. And I am not going to lie; it was way harder than I feared. 

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What does this new world order mean for journalism? 

It is very justified to ask this question and to be concerned over the issue. BBC News made a study where they asked young people where they find their news, and most of them answered that their main source is social media.  

This is concerning in a way, that Meta has all the power to decide what they will show and not show on their platforms, and that can drive masses of people internationally in the direction they want. And we don’t have such big existing platforms to fight back and give a different perception on things to the same users. 

Another kind of censorship that should worry us is self-censorship. If media companies or journalists start to fear too much of the consequences when publishing things that are against the agenda of the current US government or Meta, they might censor their own content to stay out of trouble. This type of censorship is as damaging as the one coming from the platform or government.

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Are there any alternatives for Meta apps? 

I believe I am one of many who started to look for alternatives for Meta apps, and here is what I found:

BlueSky – a good alternative for X and Threads with similar features, and it seems to be getting more and more popular. However, I would like to note that this app is also owned by a US corporation. 

Snapchat – also has ownership in the USA but is an option for Meta. This is the platform where Instagram sort of copied the ‘story’ feature. In Snapchat you can still post your own stories for 24 hours and connect with your friends. Nowadays you can even doomscroll in Snapchat. Not that I think it is a good feature.

Pixelfed – is an open-source social network service for sharing images. Lifehacker states it to be like Instagram was in the ‘old days’, and I agree. But it is not yet the most user-friendly in my opinion, and you need a bit of time to get familiar with it.  

I think we are missing good social media platforms from Europe to even get close to competing with Instagram, but here are a couple of options for you. 

BeReal – a social media service with French origins. You get a notification once or twice a day when you should be sharing what you are doing right in that moment. Not ideal for news but great if you are only interested in your friends’ everyday life. 

Spotify – Not a typical social media platform but has a lot of music and podcasts to replace the scrolling time from Instagram, and they have now even added videos and comment features! Spotify is owned by Swedish guy called Daniel Ek, so it is a great platform option from Europe. 

Also, to find news, it is not a dumb idea to download apps like BBC World News and scroll that when sippin’ your morning coffee to find all types of news directly from their platform and not only the ones your favourite influencers feature in their stories. 

Is that all? 

Absolutely not! Also, because there is so much more in life than social media platforms and phones. 

One thing I did in my week without Meta platforms was to buy magazines, and it was a great decision. Now I have Vogue Scandinavia with me, waiting for the sun to hit my balcony, and my favourite Finnish newspaper comes to my mailbox monthly, so I have something to read in the toilet, like in the ‘good old days’. It is not so bad to stop every once in a while and distance yourself from the virtual reality. You might even feel a bit relieved for a second in this crazy world we live in.

Text: Lilli Huovari
Photo: CC Mart Production / Julio Lopez / Pexels