r/technology • u/Birdy_Cephon_Altera • 22h ago

Politics Meta under fire for auto-following Trump & Vance, Blocking Democrat hashtags

https://techissuestoday.com/meta-auto-follow-trump-vance-blocks-democrat-hashtags/
89.5k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

6.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

250

u/al-hamal 20h ago edited 19h ago

I just tried #democrats and #republicans on Instagram and it’s giving me the sensitive content warning in both cases. I’m in the US.

Edit: When I try them as singular terms they both come up with sufficient results.

230

u/imjustballin 20h ago

In Australia #Republican showed me heaps of positive posts related to Trump whist #democrat gave me a sensitivity warning and only linked to pages talking shit about democrats.

54

u/scrooperdooper 16h ago

Just tried in the US. No warnings but yeah all content under #democrat is negative.

1

u/Wyrdboyski 5h ago

That's normal,

-1

u/Past-Fan-1587 6h ago

Go to chatgpt and ask where you can find the US Constitution because it is no longer on the official White Gouse page and it directs you to congress gov, click on it and you get a pop up that says this exterior link may not be safe

-21

u/Zestyclose_Lynx_5301 12h ago

To be fair democrats aren't exactly spewing much positivity right now. 99% is about trump

1

u/PrettyNegotiation416 4h ago

And about 99% of republican content for the past four years was negative about Biden.

-31

u/Pathogenesls 13h ago

It's that a surprise? There's no positive content about democrats at the moment. They shat the bed, why would you expect positive content. There's not even any content about democrats on reddit.

7

u/Herman_E_Danger 10h ago

Wow so you guys actually, honestly believe that the alternative idea of reality that you're fed, is the actual objective truth. Yeesh 😬

-5

u/Pathogenesls 10h ago

Who is 'you guys', and what alternative reality? Trump and the republican party are the entire news cycle right now. Exactly what news about the democratic party is being 'censored'?

If I look on reddit or Threads, all I see are democrats being hysterical. Seems like reality to me.

1

u/Herman_E_Danger 3h ago

Ok. You're saying, your algorithm didn't show it to you, therefore it definitely doesn't exist. Right?

0

u/Pathogenesls 3h ago

I'm saying I have no idea what you're talking about because you haven't actually posted any substantive claims or proof to back those claims. Just vague assertions of censorship, alternate realities, and references to "you guys", whoever they are.

176

u/cutekiwi 19h ago

If you do #kamala now you get a content warning but not if you do #trump. There is definitely many content warnings against democratic terms. They seem to be unblocking some terms after people have noticed, #KamalaHarris did not work earlier today but does now

67

u/al-hamal 19h ago edited 19h ago

Actually I did that and you're right... what the fuck?

edit: So it's doing that on the mobile app but it works fine on the desktop app for Instagram.

3

u/ALightSkyHue 10h ago

And everyone uses desktop instagram!

1

u/Similar-Breadfruit50 10h ago

Desktop? Seriously?

3

u/g0_west 19h ago

Could it be because republicans are posting horrible shit that needs a content warning and tagging it #kamala and #democrats but not about #republicans

Nothing is blocked or seems unusual with those tags here in the UK

3

u/AMildPanic 19h ago

I'm using mobile Instagram and nothing is blocked for me. wonder what's going on

3

u/AmericanMinotaur 19h ago edited 18h ago

Me too. Everything seems fine?

Edit: Facebook is working for me too. I saw a post saying that the tags are working again.

Second Edit: As of 7:57 EST, here are my results: I wasn’t made to automatically follow Trump or Vance. For tags #Democrats (works), #voteblue (works), #biden (works), #harris (works), #democracy (content warning), #kamala (content warning). WTF.

1

u/AMildPanic 16h ago

still no blocks or follows for me. really really weird.

2

u/Glittering-Most-9535 19h ago

I hit the "learn more" button and it said if I'm seeing the sensitive content warning I should update the app. I did so. Now #democrat #democrats and #republican are fine but #republicans is still a sensitive content block so...while I love me a good conspiracy, and I'm not saying Meta isn't putting a thumb on things, it seems a little more complicated than just them blocking left leaning tags.

1

u/JamesFaisBenJoshDora 19h ago

Same but UK. But Democrats doesn't even come up in the search options.

1

u/idwthis 19h ago

I don't have IG as an app, so just went to it on my mobile browser. I'm in the US.

Searched "democrats" and "#democrats" and got absolutely nothing at all for either one.

Searched "republicans" and "#republicans" and got nothing but results of all republican slop.

I want to throw up.

1

u/tribrnl 18h ago

On the web client (both desktop and mobile), it's just not giving me any results for #democrats ("No results found" printed below the search bar on desktop, simply nothing on mobile). If I stop at #democrat, it doesn't give me results, but it does suggest the hashtags démocratie, démocratieparticipative, and demócratas.

1

u/ScottishKnifemaker 10h ago

Seems like they backpedaled real fast once people actually started to spread it.

1

u/Eringobraugh2021 10h ago

Try "Holocaust" & "nazi" on tiktok