"Reagan" star Dennis Quaid told Joe Rogan that he’s all too aware of social media trying to cancel conservative viewpoints.
During the latest episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience," the actor talked to the podcast host about how Facebook has appeared to have been censoring content about his upcoming movie about iconic Republican President Ronald Reagan.
"Censorship is happening to us through Facebook," Quaid told Rogan in the episode that aired Thursday.
After a lengthy discussion about how conservative views are silenced by the media, the actor explained how Facebook seems to be targeting ads and blocking media that promotes his new film, claiming the content "is an attempt to sway an election."
Quaid expressed his disbelief over the accusation, telling his host, "I mean, the last time I heard, you know, Reagan was on the ballot 40 years ago."
"Do you think if you made a positive Obama movie, it would a be ‘sway an election?,’" Rogan asked.
The actor replied, saying that an Obama film was made in 2020, and it didn’t seem to bother anybody.
The "Reagan" star flipped the accusation of election meddling back around, adding, "Just the act of banning or censoring that material – as you were talking about – is an attempt to sway an election."
Quaid did acknowledge that after he and the film’s production team sent a letter to Facebook complaining about the targeting, the big tech platform admitted it was a "mistake," though he didn’t appear too convinced by the excuse.
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"Since then, Facebook has said they made a mistake. They said that yesterday because we put out a letter to it in an article on Newsweek. And they said they made a mistake. It was – their automatic systems had detected it."
A Facebook spokesperson told Newsweek Tuesday, "While there are no restrictions on this page that would prevent the admins from posting, we did identify a handful of ads from this account that were incorrectly rejected. This happened because our automated systems mistakenly determined that content about President Reagan required prior authorization in accordance with our policies for ads about Social Issues, Elections or Politics. This was a mistake and the restriction on the ads has been lifted."
"Oh, how convenient," Rogan replied sarcastically, before going on to suggest that "rogue" far-left employees might have had something to do with the "mistake."
Quaid talked about Facebook’s so-called "mistake" on Fox News Wednesday, telling anchor Trace Gallagher that this "happened several times actually," including one instance where a previous interview between the actor and Gallagher about the film was censored on the site.
"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," he said.
"Reagan" will be released in theaters nationwide Aug. 30.
