I understand that this post is flagged because it can start flame wars and “not curious conversations”, but I’m curious about what people here from different parts of the world are seeing for these search terms. If censorship is indeed happening either due to manual flags or “AI” algorithms, people need to know what’s happening and if this is just anecdotal or geography specific or could be spreading to other countries in other forms for other search words and terms.
I don’t have an Instagram account to verify this myself.
UK: can confirm that '#democrat' gives "we've hidden these results". While typing in the search box it auto-suggests "democrats crying memes", which is not hidden.
HN flags and removes lots of this sort of discussion for not aligning with their goals (imho, anecdotally). Censorship is a creeping disease that already has its foot over the winning line.
foot over the winning line? bratna, they've been dancing in the endzone for well over a decade, arguably since the mid 2000s when the W Bush media convinced the average voter to "support the troops" even if they're against fighting two wars at once.
this isn't foot over, this is consolidation. to quote a marvel movie: "we're in the endgame now"
I get the same "We've hidden these results" on Instagram in Spain. But #democrats (plural) works and #fucktrump as well (a user here was saying that was censored but #fuckbiden was allowed)
- #voteblue (no results) vs #votered (normal results)
- #fuckbiden (normal results) vs #fucktrump (no results)
Most likely explanation is whatever algorithm change they pushed on 20/Jan to boost Trump-aligned posts and bury Trump unaligned ones was accidentally tuned too aggressively and became too obvious. Please accept our apologies, we will be rectifying the issue and fixing the Algorithm so the manipulation of public opinion is properly hidden, as intended.
> If censorship is indeed happening either due to manual flags or “AI” algorithms, people need to know what’s happening and if this is just anecdotal or geography specific or could be spreading to other countries in other forms for other search words and terms.
Not only it is happening. It is also influenced by the biggest bidder.
They created two segregated lists on purpose. They implemented a change that only affected one list. They accidentally had a bug that exposed that they were trying to do something. They question now is what were they originally trying to accomplish?
my interesting anecdote from chatgpt testing a year or two ago, whenever it started getting popular, was that it would give me tips on assassinating trump but not biden
disclosure: i was not planning on this in any way, it was only for testing purposes
So what happens if they don't give that explanation to you?
I mean, it is kind of obvious, Trump is now in power and Zuckerberg does not like problems. Or would you rather have a technical scapegoat explanation, that some intern messed up?
The question for the people who find this outrageous, why didn't you find the opposite situation just as outrageous? For years, liberals have been tacitly and often explicitly endorsing censorious behavior of Twitter, Meta and others as not only legitimate, but desirable. And this outcome is exactly why that was a dangerous position to embrace. Because, soon enough, someone you don't agree with will come into power.
We need to denounce censorship always, _especially_ when we disagree with those being censored.
I’ve always been in favor of censoring based on facts. It’s just a shame that one side of the political divide is a lot more prone to… completely ignore the truth. That means it looks like you’re censoring their speech, when what you are really censoring is nonsense.
#republicans has never been censored. And tbh when right/far right content is being censored, it’s usually because they’re lying or prove to be terrible human beings. Not the same thing.
There's something to this argument, but a truly uncensored site 4chan style would never have been bigger than that site. The platforms have to censor CSAM; commercially, they end up having to censor slurs and abuse down to a level which the users and advertisers find acceptable.
(also there's a lot of false equivalence going on here - 'democrat' isn't a slur!)
It never was that blatant;
Liberals did not explicitly ran on "everything has to be free speech";
It is a difference if you censor hate speech or your political opposition
It's hilarious to me that so many people are just noticing the censorship of these sites. But hey, I guess that's a good thing right? Surely we all want freedom of speech now.
I have no dog in this fight and I want to see all ideas surface. Then people will be able to judge for themselves. I do not want any kind of filtration by either communists or conservatives.
It's not censoring, it's a private corporation and they can do whatever they want with their platform. They just want that type of speech on their platform, but you can build your own social media if you want to :)
Now witness how people suddenly realize what is the problem iwth this argument when it happens to them. It's free private action when we do it, but fascism when the other guys do it. Always so.
- "This is a free market; if you do not like it use another platform!"
- "I thought $conglomerate" had our back! They had rainbows and all; is that all it took them to fold"?
- "No, this is not a systemic issue; conversation needs to be steered away from attacking the system and rather its a few bad apples! Go after them and stop asking for systemic changes!"
- "Any attempt at regulating companies in an assault on #freedom and must not be tolerated"
I am against almost all kinds of censorship, the only times I personally believe things should be censored if it's inciting violence/death threats to people. And even then I feel like censorship is probably the wrong way to do it.
And from that perspective, these quotes you're currently touting are ripped out of their context, making them sound asinine despite being mostly on point, fundamentally.
Twitter, Facebook, Google etc are private companies. They should be free to censor whatever they decide to censor.
I would personally hate it if they did, and it'd hope we'd get a competing platform that doesn't censor and that that'd become the standard, but it is what it is.
If a government makes the company censor something, then that is a violation of free speech (which I sadly don't have, as I'm not from the USA). And isn't that what happened in the context of Corona/antivax?
What is censorship for you personally? I don't have a clear definition in mind (because I think is hard), but something along the lines of "the ones with overwhelming power should not be able to impose what ideas are spread".
Why I think is hard it's because multiple rules can be made to make it impossible to spread ideas: talking loudly in the street => you disturb the neighbors; you send mails with pamphlets => it's spam; want to make an add on TV => extremely expensive. And so on.
> Twitter, Facebook, Google etc are private companies. They should be free to censor whatever they decide to censor.
Why? Private companies can't dump waste onto a river, can't build buildings not up to code, can't discriminate based on religion or sex, can't prevent their employees from joining a union, can't evade taxes (well these last 2 only in theory I admit)... Meta owns platforms with 3B, 2B, 2B users (fb, insta, whatsapp); why the hell wouldn't it be possible, in principle, to regulate them as public utilities and forbid them by law from censorship or other nefarious practices?
Your phone company can't spy on your conversations and your power company can't shut you off if you are black. Only on a society completely far off the deep end of neoliberal philosophy would people even think to invoke "but it's a private company" like some sort of holy taboo.
Your internet provider is also a private company. Do you think it should be free to censor you and close your contract if you visit websites they don't agree with?
Companies that try to turn themselves into the infrastructure of the internet and then control it can fuck right off, private or not. Here's an example of where the Supreme Court agrees:
Yup. Anyone who still maintains an account on any Meta product (including WhatsApp) is giving this shit their full-throated support in the only way Zuck cares about. And that says nothing about the kinds of horrible people still working there.
It seems like they quickly resolved it but as people making software we know exactly what happened. The deployment was not successful. Does not make the idea any less ugly. I’m sure they are gonna redeploy a less obvious version
So Instagram definitely created two segregated lists of hashtags based on politics, and intentionally implemented SOMETHING in the algorithm differently between the two, messed up and revealed that they are trying to do SOMETHING differently between the two. Now that the tags are 'restored' the question is what is Insta actually trying to accomplish behind the scenes?
Readit News
I don’t have an Instagram account to verify this myself.
this isn't foot over, this is consolidation. to quote a marvel movie: "we're in the endgame now"
Dead Comment
- #dnc (no results) vs #rnc (normal results)
- #voteblue (no results) vs #votered (normal results)
- #fuckbiden (normal results) vs #fucktrump (no results)
Most likely explanation is whatever algorithm change they pushed on 20/Jan to boost Trump-aligned posts and bury Trump unaligned ones was accidentally tuned too aggressively and became too obvious. Please accept our apologies, we will be rectifying the issue and fixing the Algorithm so the manipulation of public opinion is properly hidden, as intended.
Not only it is happening. It is also influenced by the biggest bidder.
Searched for #dnc #democrat right now, and got relevant results.
Deleted Comment
Deleted Comment
Dead Comment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_propaganda
disclosure: i was not planning on this in any way, it was only for testing purposes
I mean, it is kind of obvious, Trump is now in power and Zuckerberg does not like problems. Or would you rather have a technical scapegoat explanation, that some intern messed up?
We need to denounce censorship always, _especially_ when we disagree with those being censored.
(also there's a lot of false equivalence going on here - 'democrat' isn't a slur!)
I have no dog in this fight and I want to see all ideas surface. Then people will be able to judge for themselves. I do not want any kind of filtration by either communists or conservatives.
Deleted Comment
- "This is a free market; if you do not like it use another platform!"
- "I thought $conglomerate" had our back! They had rainbows and all; is that all it took them to fold"?
- "No, this is not a systemic issue; conversation needs to be steered away from attacking the system and rather its a few bad apples! Go after them and stop asking for systemic changes!"
- "Any attempt at regulating companies in an assault on #freedom and must not be tolerated"
And from that perspective, these quotes you're currently touting are ripped out of their context, making them sound asinine despite being mostly on point, fundamentally.
Twitter, Facebook, Google etc are private companies. They should be free to censor whatever they decide to censor.
I would personally hate it if they did, and it'd hope we'd get a competing platform that doesn't censor and that that'd become the standard, but it is what it is.
If a government makes the company censor something, then that is a violation of free speech (which I sadly don't have, as I'm not from the USA). And isn't that what happened in the context of Corona/antivax?
Why I think is hard it's because multiple rules can be made to make it impossible to spread ideas: talking loudly in the street => you disturb the neighbors; you send mails with pamphlets => it's spam; want to make an add on TV => extremely expensive. And so on.
Why? Private companies can't dump waste onto a river, can't build buildings not up to code, can't discriminate based on religion or sex, can't prevent their employees from joining a union, can't evade taxes (well these last 2 only in theory I admit)... Meta owns platforms with 3B, 2B, 2B users (fb, insta, whatsapp); why the hell wouldn't it be possible, in principle, to regulate them as public utilities and forbid them by law from censorship or other nefarious practices?
Your phone company can't spy on your conversations and your power company can't shut you off if you are black. Only on a society completely far off the deep end of neoliberal philosophy would people even think to invoke "but it's a private company" like some sort of holy taboo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama