Tucker Carlson boasts more than 3.7 million followers on Instagram. On another platform, X, his following is nearly 13 million. Given that X is perceived as less restrictive, Carlson regularly posts episodes of his new show there. This disparity in followers might stem from another factor.
A quick search for Carlson didn’t uncover his verified account. Instead, the results were inundated with impersonators and fan pages. It took several attempts to confirm that Carlson’s verified account would only show up when entering his exact handle, @TuckerCarlson, into the search bar.
Upon finding Carlson’s account, Instagram put up one last barrier to engagement, imploring prospective followers to reconsider.
The pop-up reads, “Are you sure you want to follow @tuckercarlson?”
“This account has repeatedly posted false information that was reviewed by independent fact-checkers or it went against our Community Guidelines,” added the pop-up.
No similar warning messages appeared when testing follow requests on accounts of various liberal personalities and publications known for spreading falsehoods and creating misleading narratives.
The question doesn’t arise, for example, for people wanting to follow Newsweek, despite its history of playing loose with the truth. Just last month, Newsweek incorrectly claimed that Tucker Carlson had collaborated with a Russian state-owned news channel. In reality, the outlet had used footage of Carlson’s without proper permission.
Users won’t face this warning when trying to follow Jussie Smollett, who notoriously fabricated a story about being attacked by Trump supporters in Chicago. In truth, he had paid two Nigerian-born brothers to stage the fake hate crime.
“I have never seen this warning before on any account,” tester said.
“I was following a lot of people, and out of the 100+ that I followed, Tucker was the only one for whom this came up,” he added.
When questioned about Instagram’s perceived suppression efforts, Neil Patel, co-founder and CEO of the Tucker Carlson Network, said, “Tucker has one of the largest audiences in all of media. Millions of people rely on him because they know he’s trying his best to tell the truth.”
“This combination of scale and independence is a serious threat to established power,” continued Patel.
“That is the only reason why people can’t even go to a Tucker Carlson birthday post on Instagram without some insane warning,” he added.
“Luckily, people are on to this,” Patel added, noting that they’ve elected to sidestep “big tech censors” like Instagram altogether and go straight to Tucker Carlson’s website.
Instagram’s efforts to dissuade people from hearing Carlson out will strike a contrarian nerve in people already familiar with him. However, “for someone who is on the fence, this could be an effective tool to keep them away.”
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