US Senators press Meta over No Kings lackout

Washington: Five Democratic US senators have asked Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to disclose whether the company communicated with the Trump administration about No Kings protests, following the temporary shutdown of the coalition’s Instagram account during nationwide demonstrations.

The senators sought answers by October 29 about the removal, the delay in restoring administrators’ access and safeguards against similar disruptions before election day.

The letter, released on Thursday, was signed by Chris Van Hollen, Ron Wyden, Jeff Merkley, Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy. The account disruption occurred on October 17.

“Was the decision to remove the No Kings Coalition account made by a human or by an automated process?” they asked.

The lawmakers also requested records of any discussions with the administration about No Kings or other pro-democracy protests. Their letter raises questions about political influence but does not establish that the administration directed the shutdown.

They challenged Meta’s changing explanations and asked how it would protect accounts distributing election and civic information.

Meta has described the suspension as an automated enforcement error and apologised. Its communications executive Andy Stone initially attributed the action to unusually frequent posting, sharing or commenting.

In a subsequent explanation, Stone said engineers had traced the trigger primarily to activity involving the reading of profiles, posts and hashtags. According to his statement, reproduced in an accessible archive of his account, a Claude tool generated bursts of requests that resembled automated bot traffic.

Stone said an automated review restored the account about an hour later, but resolving administrators’ access took additional time.

The coalition’s own account of the incident distinguishes between the restoration of its publicly visible page and its organisers’ ability to use it.

It said the account disappeared around 1:30 p.m. Eastern time during its national early-voting mobilisation. Although the page subsequently became visible, administrators remained unable to log in and publish updates for hours.

On October 19, the coalition sent Zuckerberg a separate open letter seeking public answers. Its published updates show that the dispute over the shutdown preceded Thursday’s congressional intervention.

Meta’s Oversight Board also criticised the handling of the account. In an October 20 statement, its co-chairs said the company’s safeguards should have caught the enforcement error and questioned why the problem had not been resolved more quickly.

They urged Meta to make its election-related enforcement more transparent and consistent. The board said both excessive removal of political speech and inadequate enforcement could damage electoral integrity. It also called for automated systems to account for language, nuance and political context.

The No Kings Coalition describes its events as nonpartisan efforts to increase voter participation. Its October 17 mobilisation focused on early voting, and its published organising principles call for lawful, nonviolent action and de-escalation of confrontations.

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