Meta Takes Down “No Kings” in the Middle of the Protests: First a Supposed Glitch, Then Another Excuse

On Saturday, people across the United States took to the streets at thousands of “No Kings” events to protest Donald Trump's deportation policies and his war against Iran. On October 17, at around 1:30 PM Eastern Time, the organizers' Instagram account, of all accounts, went offline. That same day, the movement was also mobilizing people to vote early in the November 3 congressional elections. Its most important public communication channel was suddenly dead. The protests were already the third nationwide wave of demonstrations. People were out in the streets opposing Trump's policies while the movement's central information page was temporarily taken away from its followers. The account remained unavailable for roughly 90 minutes. The organizers weren't able to publish posts again until after 5:00 PM. At a protest meant to reach people on a single day, those lost hours are gone for good.

Meta apologized. Spokesperson Andy Stone initially explained that unusually frequent posting and sharing, along with large numbers of comments, had triggered an automated safeguard. The organizers disputed that account. In the 24 hours before the suspension, they said, they had published only a handful of posts and reached thousands of viewers through a livestream. Then Stone offered a new explanation: A tool working with the artificial intelligence system Claude had accessed profiles and hashtags in bursts on October 17, at times generating roughly 4 times the usual volume. The security software had identified this as mass automated activity and mistakenly shut down the account. Technically, that sounds like an explanation. But Instagram thrives on massive amounts of engagement. Why the public first heard about supposedly excessive posting and then about automated reading remains a perfectly legitimate question. Ezra Levin, one of the leading organizers and public spokespeople for the No Kings Coalition, publicly addressed Meta's suspension of the Instagram account and sharply criticized the company's actions.

Read also our article: What Anonymous Saw Coming in 2010 Is Marching Through Los Angeles in 2026, Only More Quietly: America's Protest Movement Heads to the Ballot Box

The movement finds Meta's explanation far from convincing. The organizers also provided evidence that content about “No Kings” and early voting had temporarily been inaccessible or restricted on other services operated by the company. These are allegations from those affected, the kind we're all far too familiar with. At least Meta acknowledges that the account was suspended by mistake. An apology, however, doesn't bring back lost reach. Civil rights organizations criticized the incident as an alarming interference with political mobilization. The timing matters even more than the duration alone: Even after a suspended page comes back online, it can't make up for missed opportunities to reach voters. Right in the middle of nationwide rallies in Seattle and San Diego, in Chicago, and in other cities, that shared point of access was missing. In Washington, demonstrators gathered at the planned site of Trump's triumphal arch to encourage people to vote early.

The incident also comes alongside other suspensions that raise questions about Meta's treatment of Trump's political opponents. On October 15, a Brazilian court ordered restrictions on accounts belonging to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to be lifted. Once again, Meta acknowledged a technical error but denied any political bias. In September, accounts belonging to Albanian groups protesting a luxury development by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner were suspended. There, too, the company called it a mistake. Following a request from the U.S. Department of Justice, as our investigations and reporting on the matter established, Meta had already removed a Facebook page called “ICE Sighting-Chicagoland” in 2025, where sightings of immigration officers were posted. In that case, the government request was explicitly known.

Read also our article: Money for the Vile Hatred of LGBTQ+ People: Meta Lets Right-Wing and Racist Hate Accounts Cash In on Facebook

Since Trump's return to the White House, Mark Zuckerberg seems to have thoroughly abandoned his former restraint toward the president. One million dollars for the inauguration, 5 million for Trump's planned ballroom. Another 25 million dollars went toward settling the lawsuit over Trump's earlier Facebook suspension. Dana White, a close Trump ally, now sits on the board of directors. Former government adviser Dina Powell McCormick was appointed president of Meta. Zuckerberg visits the White House and, according to reports, speaks with Trump regularly by phone. For a man who ought to be making the political independence of his platform credible, that's a remarkable degree of closeness. And right when hundreds of thousands of people are demonstrating against Trump, the most important Instagram account of “No Kings” disappears. Meta then offers some story about a technical glitch, changes its explanation, and apologizes. That's still nowhere near an explanation for why this particular movement was silenced at the decisive moment. Meta will have to answer the question of possible political interference. Zuckerberg has now poured enough money into his relationships in Washington. Maybe it's time he showed at least a little more respect for his own users.

The film “Musk,” directed by Alex Gibney, also got caught up in the rules of major internet platforms. Meta initially rejected advertising for it and later called it a mistake. TikTok initially permanently suspended distributor Bleecker Street's advertising account, but after public criticism, it also reversed the suspension, calling it a mistake. On Musk's own platform, X, paid advertising for the critical documentary remained prohibited. TikTok initially pointed to rules against political advertising, even though Musk currently holds no government office and the ads were promoting a film. Oracle holds a 15 percent stake in TikTok's U.S. business. Its co-founder, Larry Ellison, is considered a Trump supporter and previously served on Tesla's board of directors. That doesn't yet establish any coordinated suppression of the film. The sheer number of supposed mistakes still deserves attention.

Meta did not answer the specific question of whether the Trump administration or allied groups had contacted the company about “No Kings.” Instead, the company once again referred to Stone's technical explanation. Meta's apology is flimsy, and its changing explanations are an insult. A company that has worked its way closer to Trump through millions of dollars and personal connections now apparently expects everyone to swallow its story about an unfortunate technical glitch without question. The question of why its supposed safeguards failed at precisely such a politically crucial moment remains unanswered. An independent investigation would be appropriate. Until then, Meta has mainly demonstrated how little it seems to value its users' trust. Zuckerberg can cultivate his political connections as extensively as he likes. Now the public is also supposed to believe that the suspension of his political opponents, of all people, was an unfortunate technical coincidence. Zuckerberg has put his cards on the political table right on schedule. He can save his apology. The lost reach is gone for good.

Our investigations against Meta are running at full speed on every front, because this company has enormous potential. To be continued… (winking smiley)