Donald Jr. Gripes About Decline in Instagram Followers

Donald Trump Jr. said he’s noticing a drop in new followers on Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app with 800 million users worldwide.

He took to Instagram to suggest that he was “shadow-banned,” the practice of cutting off traffic to social media accounts without notifying people of the ban.

“For weeks I’ve been watching my #instagram analytics and noticed a crazy drop off in new followers,” Trump Jr. said. “I used to average around 10,000 + new followers a week and then it just dropped off.”

He also said a friend searching for his name got a message that read, “Posts with words or tags you’re searching for often encourage behavior that can cause harm and even lead to death.”

Honestly it’s time for me to put this out there. For weeks I’ve been watching my #instagram analytics and noticed a crazy drop off in new followers. I used to average around 10,000 + new followers a week and then it just dropped off. See screenshot from last week where despite over 7,000,000 impressions THAT WEEK I added 0 new followers. Also see video and pic where a friend searching MY NAME got a message warning that “Posts with words or tags you’re searching for often encourage behavior that can cause harm and even lead to death”... REALLY?!?! Are you fricken kidding me? @zuck this is insane. I get that my 3 year old Chloe can be pretty aggressive as are a few of my humorous memes, but this is ridiculous. If this account “could cause harm and even lead to death” we have serious problems. The #shadowban nonsense and the hysteria RE any conservative thought has to stop. #enough #mastersoftheuniverse #censorship

A post shared by Donald Trump Jr. (@donaldjtrumpjr) on May 25, 2018 at 3:36pm PDT

Trump Jr. posted his concerns the same day that Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the party is so concerned about social media companies filtering out conservative ideas and viewpoints ahead of the November midterms that it reached out to Facebook and Twitter to share its concerns.

"We've seen in the history of Facebook there have been instances where they have changed the trending topics. They've suppressed conservative viewpoints, we've recently seen with Diamond and Silk that they suspended their account," McDaniel said during an appearance on Fox News.

Trump Jr. pleaded with billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive of Facebook, about his social media plight.

“@zuck this is insane. I get that my 3 year old Chloe can be pretty aggressive as are a few of my humorous memes, but this is ridiculous,” Trump Jr. said. “The #shadowban nonsense and the hysteria RE any conservative thought has to stop.”