R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe has encouraged people to boycott Facebook and Instagram over their role in “helping advance the far right in America”.
The singer has called for people to log out from all platforms owned by Meta – which also includes Threads, Whatsapp, Messenger, Giphy, Metaquest and Rayban Meta – between January 19 and 26.
“I’ll be logged off for the week,” he captioned his post. “Please consider doing the same so corporations like Meta can imagine there might be consequences for helping advance the far right in America and world wide.”
“Or are we too addicted we can’t log off even for one week?” he added.
Stipe also commented that he feels the actions of Meta are “so gross”, adding: “I’m really happy to step away for a week as some form of protest – and then I’ll come back and decide what to do from there.”
Meta rebranded to its current name in 2021 to “reflect its focus on building the metaverse”, having previously been the parent company of Facebook. Its chairman and CEO is the Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Earlier this month, the company announced that it was controversially removing the use of independent fact checkers on its platforms, replacing them with X-style “community notes”, which leaves the accuracy of posts up to users (via BBC).
Zuckerberg said that fact checkers were “too politically biased” and declared it was “time to get back to our roots around free expression”.
Following the decision, The Guardian reported that experts were concerned that it would lead to “boomer radicalisation”, with “middle-aged Facebook users” at risk of being “exposed to extremist content” which will make it “even harder to discern the truth”.
The move is thought to be an attempt to get closer to the incoming President Trump, who recently said that he was impressed by Zuckerberg’s decision and added that Meta have “come a long way”.
Stipe has been politically outspoken since early on in his career, and recently performed at multiple rallies for the unsuccessful Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
R.E.M. have always been vocal about the importance of participating in elections. Back in 2016, Stipe and Mike Mills spoke of their fear of Donald Trump’s presidency during a Q&S session at the London Borderline and added that they hoped that his election would “galvanise” disillusioned American voters.
In 2019, the group reacted to Trump’s use of their song ‘Everybody Hurts’ in a meme which positioned his State of the Union address against down-cast-looking politicians including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders.
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