Summary

Meta’s Instagram faced criticism after searches for “Democrat” or “Democrats” displayed a “results hidden” message, while “Republican” returned 3.3 million posts.

The issue emerged after Donald Trump’s inauguration, which Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg attended.

Meta attributed the problem to a technical error affecting political hashtags and promised a quick fix.

Critics, however, flagged concerns over perceived political bias, especially as Meta has recently shifted content moderation policies and aligned closer to the Republican administration, including donations to Trump and appointing a Republican as global affairs chief.

    • superkret@feddit.org
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      3 days ago

      Just travelled through Chile. All bus schedules in the south are exclusively on Facebook and Instagram, and literally the only way to book a ticket is Whatsapp.
      I wish I was exaggerating.

      • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        What! Bus schedules on Facebook exclusively? Facebook does not scream “repository of information”, that’s never, ever, been the purpose of the site.

        That sounds awful

        • superkret@feddit.org
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          2 days ago

          Yeah, they usually have a jpeg with the time schedule, and put that on their facebook or instagram.
          One of the results of the extreme deregulation and privatization of everything in the country – Now every bus connection is serviced by a different company, which usually consists of one bus and 2 self employed people.
          For the major connections there’s a privately run service that tries to keep track of what company drives where, and puts that on a website where you can buy tickets – for a slightly higher price of course.
          But for the minor connections, your only chance is phyiscally going to the bus stop, where QR codes for the Meta accounts and Whatsapp Nr are posted, or you can ask at the nearest empanadas stand.

    • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip
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      3 days ago

      I currently work for a company that does contractual support for some meta products. I’ll be doing my part to slow work there until I move

    • futatorius@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      And block or (better) poison all their trackers. Just because you’re not using a Meta product doesn’t mean they’re not spying on you.

    • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 days ago

      Haven’t logged into my facebook since covid. Don’t have Instagram, WhatsApp or other social media crap. Lemmy (sometimes reddit, I have to admit) and Discord are the only “social networks” (I hate this term, it should be para-social network) I use.

  • Orbituary@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Tip of the iceberg. Even if this was a mistake, we don’t know what any engines are hiding if they don’t display results.

    • cnirrad@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      The mistake was that they got caught. Going forward they will be sure to shadow ban any content the orange turd doesn’t want.

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    Meanwhile in another thread, I am attempting to explain to someone who wants Signal to be able to directly interface with WhatsApp, someone who has no understanding of why metadata security is a big deal… why purely on technical, privacy / security level, that’s not workable.

    Well, here’s another arrow in my quiver if that discussion continues, jesus fucking christ.

  • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Threatening billionaires with jail apparently works. I wonder if it could be used to make them pay taxes.

  • blakenong@lemmings.world
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    3 days ago

    Wouldn’t it be funny if a country inserted its agents into the US tech job market to gain access to code in order to manipulate the public with little tweaks to algorithms?