French politician Marion Maréchal has accused Meta of “arbitrarily “suspending right-wing accounts on Instagram.
Maréchal denounced the suspension of five Instagram accounts including that of media groups Frontières and Occidentis, the whistleblower association ASLA and the account of Alice Cordelier, the President of the feminist group Collective Nemesis.
“This is an obvious political, arbitrary censorship, in the face of which we cannot remain silent or passive,” said Maréchal on X on August 23.
She extended her support for influencers of what she says is a “scandalous censorship”.
“With all our national and European parliamentarians, we are initiating a court case against the Secretary of State for Digital Affairs and the European Commissioner Thierry Breton,” she stated, adding that she had requested a meeting with CEO of Meta France Laurent Solly.
Après le compte de @CordierAlice2, ceux de @ASLA_asso, @Occidentis1 et @BonneDroite, c’est désormais celui de @Frontieresmedia qui est supprimé sur Instagram.
C’est une évidente censure politique, arbitraire, devant laquelle nous ne pouvons rester silencieux ou passifs.
➡️… pic.twitter.com/A1pA2AmRcQ
— Marion Maréchal (@MarionMarechal) August 23, 2024
Maréchal is not the only one who has voiced concern over the suspension of the right-wing accounts; Sara Knafo MEP and member of the Reconquête party has accused the European Union of encouraging these measures and curbing freedom of expression.
She wrote to Meta France demanding the immediate reinstatement of the accounts banned on Instagram.
In her letter she accused the platform of muzzling pluralism and French public debate.
“Big Tech has no right to choose who can speak” she said.
La censure est une attaque directe contre la démocratie. En tant que députée française au Parlement européen, je demande à @MetaFrance le rétablissement immédiat des comptes bannis sur #Instagram. pic.twitter.com/fvAZW5S3ws
— Sarah Knafo (@knafo_sarah) August 24, 2024
Knafo has been advocating for freedom of speech and expression for some time.
“Our continent was the continent of freedom of expression, so instead of pushing these companies to censor more even when they don’t want to, like Twitter, they should be pushing the platforms to allow free expression,” she said in a recent interview radio station Radio Courtoisie.
Instagram has not reacted publicly to the demands.
But, according to French media BFMTV, Instagram has asserted that the accounts in question were treated in the usual way and that their suspension was linked to non-compliance with its rules of use, without specifying what rules had been breached.
The platform has admitted to suspending the account of Frontières media account by mistake, it said, and that it had since reinstated it, according to BFMTV.
The Association for the Support of Whistleblowers (ASLA) announced on August 26 it will sue Meta for alleged political discrimination and ideological censorship.
“These acts of censorship, carried out by META, one of the largest technology companies in the world represent a serious and imminent threat to freedom of expression,” ASLA said.
According to the French association, Meta targeted “patriots” and those who defended majority opinions but who had disturbed left-wing politicians in power.
This is the first time that French right-wing account affiliated with the hard-right has made such an accusation against a social media platform.
Talking to Brussels Signal, MEP Nicolas Bay said that he and his hard-right colleagues from France have remained immune to what he called the reach-reduction phenomenon that has hit right-wing MEPs from other countries.
Earlier this year, Tom Van Grieken, the leader of the Flemish separatist party Vlaams Belang, accused X of limiting his social media presence.
Elon Musk’s Twitter, now X, has been accused of limiting the visibility of a Twitter account, known as “shadow banning”, belonging to Tom Van Grieken, the leader of the Flemish separatist party Vlaams Belang. https://t.co/zt73YaRohK
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) August 22, 2023
