On March 5, a technical glitch disrupted user access to three Meta platforms—Facebook, Instagram, and Threads—for approximately two hours. This interruption on Super Tuesday has raised the question: Can a significant social media outage influence an election?
A report from the Poynter Institute reveals that this recent Meta outage transpired while voters in 16 states and one territory were casting their votes for the presidential primary. The report cites statistics from DownDetector indicating that over 500,000 Facebook users and 79,000 Instagram users reported issues with the platforms around 10:30 a.m E.T. A few hours later, normal service was restored.
The Poynter report also noted posts on social media platforms such as X suggesting that the outage was intentional, potentially aimed at manipulating voter turnout on Super Tuesday. "‘All major socials went down and regained at almost the exact same time,’" read one X post with more than 39,000 views as of March 5. "‘#cyberattack or practice run for the 2024 election? It is no coincidence that this happened on Super Tuesday because there are no coincidences.’"
Poynter further reported that election officials in Alabama, California, Colorado, North Carolina, and Texas stated that the outage had no impact on voting. "Many election officials told us that they communicate with voters on their websites or by opt-in text messages and emails," said Poynter. However, it also highlighted that local and state election officials often interact with voters on election days using popular social media platforms.
According to a joint press release issued by the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, Alabama Forward, Greater Birmingham Ministries, and Lift Our Vote, non-partisan organizations felt the impact of the outage. "Social media is a critical tool for non-partisan voting rights organizations to disseminate information about polling locations and hours... At times these developments occur on Election Day itself, which requires a rapid response and immediate dissemination of information to voters," the press release stated.
