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Beloved HGTV personality Erin Napier is on a mission — but she says social media platforms like Instagram are trying to keep her from spreading the word.
Erin and her husband, “Home Town” co-star Ben Napier, recently launched an initiative for parents who are committed to keeping their kids off social media until after high school — a boundary the Napiers have set for their daughters, six-year-old Helen and two-and-a-half-year-old Mae.
But promoting the Old School Festival they’re hosting in their Mississippi hometown of Laurel on March 9, 2024, has been a challenge, Erin told People. She claims that social media sites — particularly Instagram, where she has 1.5 million followers — have kept them from telling many of their fans about the event, initiative and their views on the potential harm of social media for children.
She’s not the only HGTV star to make such a claim. “Married to Real Estate” star Egypt Sherrod has said she’s also noticed an uptick in hackers and post suppression on her social media platforms ever since she made a post in 2022 that ruffled feathers.
Here’s what you need to know:
Erin Napier Says It’s ‘Disturbing’ That Social Media Posts Aren’t Reaching More People
Erin and Ben launched Osprey, which stands for Old School Parents Raising Engaged Youth, on August 1. The organization and movement is aimed at uniting families who are committed to keeping their kids off social media, with the tagline “growing social kids without social media.”
“Research tells us social media is as addictive and destructive for developing brains as any drug,” Erin wrote at the time on Instagram. “Forming a circle of families and friends who are in this together when your kids are little, linking arms and doing what it takes to give your kids the gift of a social media free adolescence is the only way we change the culture.”
Over 20,000 people signed up for the Osprey newsletter in the first weeks of its existence, she said, and the interest has been so high that she and Ben decided to host an “Old School Festival” on March 9 with speeches from experts and family workshops dedicated to woodworking, gardening, art and music.
Though Erin wrote in a February 23 post that they were “almost sold out,” tickets were still available at the time of publication a week later. One reason, Erin believes, is that Instagram’s algorithm has purposefully kept posts about the festival from reaching her followers.
“It gets suppressed,” she told People. “Posts get a tiny fraction of the views that my usual posts do, which is disturbing. I think social media should be the adult town square for sharing information. But if you’re only able to share selective information, that’s scary.”
Though only account owners can see how many views their Instagram posts have received, the graphic about the Napiers’ upcoming festival (as seen above) received around 2,600 “likes” from followers. In comparison, most of Erin’s other recent posts received eight to 10 times that level of engagement.
On X, formerly known as Twitter, there’s far less of a discrepancy. The same post there had over 10,000 views and 131 likes as of March 1, which is comparable to the views and likes Erin typically receives on other tweets.
HGTV Star Egypt Sherrod Thinks Her Social Media Posts Have Also Been Suppressed & Hacked
Social media “suppression” has been a hot topic lately, as Meta — the parent company for Instagram and Facebook — has been accused of “demoting” or not sharing certain posts that don’t align with its standards or values.
In October, the New York Times reported that thousands of pro-Palestinian users complained of their posts being censored and hidden as the Israel–Hamas war broke began. Meanwhile, beauty brand Dove has fought against “social media censorship” and on posts featuring women’s faces and bodies that don’t fit traditional beauty standards, claiming platforms frequently “demote” or even delete posts based on a person’s skin color, size, or disability.
Erin’s HGTV colleague, Egypt Sherrod, has also run into issues ever since she posted a since-deleted Instagram video in December 2022 exposing what she believed to be evidence of a human trafficking operation at a gas station, according to Black Enterprise.
After posting the video to warn her fans to be aware, she has said repeatedly that she’s been targeted by hackers and that her posts have been suppressed by social media platforms, even a year later.
In a January 11 post to promote the new season of “Married to Real Estate,” she began by writing, “Instagram is shamelessly suppressing all my posts. But I am going to try to get this out to you anyway…..”
On February 13, she addressed some of the other issues she’s been facing in a video she posted.
“I have been under cyber attack ever since I reported that sex trafficking instance months ago,” she said. “Literally, it’s been ridiculous. Fake accounts jumping up, fake web sites jumping up, snatching of my content. We’ve been fighting all kinds of copyright and trademark issues ever since then. I’m clearly under attack and somebody does not want me notifying folks or bringing attention to trafficking.”
Under its current rules, according to the Washington Post, Meta “bans attacks on people based on race, religion, nationality or sexual orientation.” The company also has the right to take down a post that it deems to be spreading “harmful stereotypes.”
Facing scrutiny in October, the social media company said in a statement, “We want to reiterate that our policies are designed to give everyone a voice while keeping people safe on our apps. We apply these policies regardless of who is posting or their personal beliefs, and it is never our intention to suppress a particular community or point of view.”
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