The movie “Reagan,” starring Dennis Quaid as the Gipper, is set to open August 30, so you can pretty much guess Facebook’s first move: to try to dampen enthusiasm and diminish publicity for the film on their platform. Sure enough, that’s exactly what they did, according to Quaid and the movie’s marketers.
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Of course, Facebook says it might have been a “mistake,” but we all know that these “mistakes” by Big Tech almost exclusively occur when the subject matter has a conservative bent.
“Facebook is once again censoring the free flow of ideas, deciding what’s best for us to see and hear; only this time it’s throttling advertising and promotion for my movie about Ronald Reagan,” the actor said via an email sent exclusively to Newsweek.
Quaid’s remarks coincide with a letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg, the chairman and CEO of Facebook parent, Meta Platforms, that outline “numerous problems” marketers say they have had when trying to post or “boost” content related to Reagan.
The letter from Eric McClellan, the director of digital marketing for the film, says that the most “egregious” example consists of a post that contains the title of the movie and an image of Quaid along with a quote from the 40th president.
“Don’t let anyone tell you that America’s best days are behind her—that the American spirit has been vanquished,” reads the quote. “We’ve seen it triumph too often in our lives not to believe it now.”
Facebook allowed the post—but refused to let the marketers “boost” it by way of a paid advertisement, according to the letter to Zuckerberg.
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It’s as if we’re back in the U.S.S.R., Quaid wrote. “Like the old Soviet Union—are we turning into a country of tech oligarchs who control the platform of groupthink to silence the individual or ‘other’ groups?”
He also appeared on “Fox News at Night” with Trace Gallagher on Tuesday:
The entire conversation is extremely interesting and worthy of a viewing, but here’s a moment where Quaid had a pretty funny quip:
…the last time I heard [about] Reagan, he hasn’t been on the ballot in 40 years. And not only that, he’s not even eligible to run because he served two terms…
…I am baffled by it, to tell you the truth, because it was banned and they haven’t even seen the film. So it seems like they don’t want other people to see the film either, I guess.
But you know, we’ll set up a screening for them anytime and [they can] see for themselves.
I was lucky enough to visit the Reagan Library on behalf of RedState for the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of his death:
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Related: Dennis Quaid Says He’s Voting for Trump: ‘He’s an A**hole, but He’s My A**hole’
Big Tech’s efforts to manipulate the minds of voters are insidious, and we need to keep calling them out at every turn. Dennis Quaid has had a successful enough career that he can survive the inevitable backlash over this from Hollywood lefties, but good for him for taking a stand.
In the meantime, I’m always dubious about historical movies; will they capture the essence of their subject, in this case, Ronald Reagan? Judging by the trailer, I’d say this movie looks like it could be a home run, and Quaid appears to embody Reagan as well as anybody could. I’ll be getting tickets, and I hope lots of other folks do, too, in one giant clapback at Facebook’s parent company Meta and its overlord, Mark Zuckerberg.