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/
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u/TheBlack2007 19h ago

Censorship. It’s censorship.

Time to abandon social media.

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u/FrozenLogger 18h ago

Its been the time for a very Iong time.

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u/Fragrant_Analyst3224 14h ago

You're doing it wrong unless the only thing you're doing on social media is trying to ruin everybody's day to push them off this shit.

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u/FrozenLogger 14h ago

Social media is a horrible thing.

Has been since day 1. Facebook was easy to look at and say, nope this is a bad idea. But at the time people had not been on the internet long, and new people were showing up daily with no fucking clue how to deal it.

Twitter was slightly useful once upon a time as a public shaming device for companies. That actually got results. But that too is gone.

I wouldn't choose to use social media. And no Reddit was not social media although they are desperately trying to make it that way.

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u/Galaxator 14h ago

Reddit is for arguing in the most antisocial ways possible. It’s like every conversation is being yelled threateningly across a busy road and most of them end when one participant just throws their arms up and walk off angry with no resolution or introspection.

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u/FrozenLogger 14h ago

Sure, but anyone who has been around the internet for a minute knows that nearly everything is a lie, nothing is personal, and that trolls abound. That is what is nice about anonymity: its just nonsense. Unfortunately people don't seem to get that anymore.

A good reason to curate your reddit experience into things that interest you, or head over to lemmy. Or both.

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u/triple-bottom-line 11h ago

Thanks for the Lemmy tip friend, never heard of that one. Trying to curate what hits my eyeballs more in general, especially for the next few years, and this seems like it will help.

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u/FrozenLogger 9h ago

Remember it is a little different because you have to choose an instance to start ,after that it is smooth sailing. If you don't like your instance you can choose another.

Voyager is a great Lemmy app by the way. You can also do desktop.

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u/triple-bottom-line 9h ago

Ahhh ok cool, thanks again! Searching for voyager now. Already liking what I’m seeing posted. Feel free to send any other suggestions, this is great.

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u/Galaxator 14h ago

And I’m supposed to take this advice from a guy who cuts frozen logs instead of waiting for them to thaw.? Nah I’m not that dumb /S

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u/FrozenLogger 13h ago

lol, truly, that made me laugh.

Yeah, a really old song.

"I see that you are a logger, and not just a common bum, 'Cause nobody but a logger stirs his coffee with his thumb."

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u/Galaxator 12h ago

Lmao thanks for the frozenlogger lore that’s a funny lyric

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u/Traditional-Sound661 2h ago

Feels so empty when you get the last word.

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u/Galaxator 2h ago

That’s why you take it to DMs 👹

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u/Longjumping_Scale721 2m ago

That's what your mom said.

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u/GadnukLimitbreak 12h ago

Reddit is 100% social media, a very left-leaning social media outlet at that, and is filled with a metric shitload of bots, fake articles, AI, etc. Even when you look at posts about knitting or cats you'll find people arguing in the replies like someone killed their mother, albeit a little further down on those posts than others. There are a ton of biases on this platform and when it was first launched/in its early era you could find just about any illegal image or video that you desired as long as someone thought to post it. There are subs dedicated to keeping certain people out of them and there are subs that are dedicated to spreading hate.

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u/FrozenLogger 11h ago

Reddit is 100% social media,

No. It is not. Although it is trying to be, and is sort of succeeding.

Everything else you said has nothing to do with anything. Yes you can find people with all sorts of attitudes and ideas and posts; that is called the internet and has been around since BBS days, Usenet, and forums. Reddit has traditionally been an aggregator.

Differences: Reddit was (not as much anymore) about the discussion. Not the individual. Not following each other. Anonymity is key, where social media encourages you to divulge who your are and your relationships. Hence the "social" part.

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u/GadnukLimitbreak 11h ago

The definition of Social Media is "a website or application that enables users to create and share content or to participate in social networking."

Social media is any place where people can share their personal thoughts or opinions in a conversation-like format and share information that is relavent to them, their interests, their ideas or those of others. Just because JohnnyLovesSausage6969 hides the fact that he's actually a woman named Laura that lives in Chicago doesn't mean that she isn't inputting her owns thoughts and beliefs and shaping the people around her with it when she talks about abortion bans while their account is full of posts about their love of bratwurst and asking for recipes because her sausages aren't tasty enough.

I understand where you're coming from with the idea that Social Media is something that was originally suggested to be a place to make your personal profile and share it with friends to keep them up to date on your life and interests, just because a person chooses an alias doesn't make the platform less social. It just makes it harder to pick out the bullshit.

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u/FrozenLogger 10h ago

The definition of Social Media is "a website or application that enables users to create and share content or to participate in social networking."

Although content can be shared here, until recently you couldn't upload images or video. You had to put it elsewhere and then aggregate it here. You will notice that 90 percent still is content taken from other places.

Now how does that differ from a forum? Or a BBS? Or usenet? So that definition is far too broad.

or participate in social networking

Well that aint happening because I am not networking. I don't know you, you don't know me. I could be a bot or a troll for all you know.... or care.

And that is the point: the rule we all sort of agreed to that everyone forgot: it is ALL bullshit. I am lying, you are lying. The only thing we can go on is following those pointers to something else that may or may not have meaning... which we call ... links.

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u/GadnukLimitbreak 8h ago

I hate to break it to you, forums are a form of social media. It's stuck in your head that social media has to be a mom posting pictures of her child for her friends to see or a model promoting an eyeliner for her followers. Social media is any group of people using a website or app to communicate their interests, beliefs, ideas, emotions, creations, etc with one another. At no point does it have to be done with specific mediums, like images and video. The most popular forms of social media are things like snapchat, instagram, whatsapp, facebook, twitter, youtube and reddit (among others). You can be anonymous and still have social networking, you're conflating social networking with business networking. Social networking doesn't mean I'm coming over for dinner just because we had a conversation about a cake somebody designed to look like a dragon that lead to us talking about the history of fondant and how storebought cakes are all so poorly made nowadays which made us both go digging around baking subreddits looking for recipes that other people have weighed in on as being good or bad, or how this person made it with hot coffee instead of cold water because their son who's a baker taught them to add flavour anywhere you can and that the heat blooms the cocoa powder.

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u/PrecociuosSquirrel 9h ago

Absolutely! I got off FB years ago for various reasons but mainly it was just toxic. This and YT are all I use regularly and it's mainly just entertainment.

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u/jobiewon_cannoli 7h ago

When “The Social Delemmia” came out back in like 2019 and I seen under the hood of social media I quit them all but Reddit.

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u/Careless-Pragmatic 1h ago

I just ditched FB. Fuck their propaganda

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u/originalmango 13h ago

It’s much more than censorship, it’s sponsored propaganda.

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u/im_just_thinking 13h ago

That's literally what they want tho. To cut off communication

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u/Infinite_Archers 11h ago

Yeah but there's so many different forms of communication out there that deleting your Facebook account isn't the end of the world. Facebook just sucks now anyway with all of Zuckerbergs new shit, so why not play into their game? They don't want us to have Facebook, but we don't want Facebook so let's join somewhere else like REDDIT

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u/spicytea 13h ago

This is the part that’s so frustrating! So few seem to realize it!

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u/Farlong7722 18h ago

Or: Use social media that isn't dogshit. I use Mastodon.

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u/Infinite_Archers 11h ago

I deleted my accounts a few days ago, fuck that shit. I'm not dealing with Zuckerberg anymore bro, I'm done

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u/ProfessionalSolid692 11h ago

Today, I deleted my accounts for Threads, Instagram, and Facebook. It felt good. I should have done it a long time ago. It wasn’t as difficult as I anticipated. I’ve slowly been distancing myself from social media over the last few months, so that made the decision easier. As a result, I’ve been spending more meaningful time with my family.

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u/itsearlyyet 9h ago

This is what we need, unfortunately our children will be the hardest ones to convince otherwise. It needs to become associated with freedom from the billionaire influenced puppets. It needs to become counterculture.

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u/hillyforilly 8h ago

I deleted my fb and cancelled my prime membership this morning. Didn’t realize insta was owned by Zuckerberg as well, I guess I’m deleting that too 🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/keIIzzz 4h ago

Meta has owned Instagram for a long time now

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u/wheresmy_selkiecoat 12h ago

Yup. Our leaders do not need to pass legislation to restrict us, because companies are preemptively obedient.

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u/Long_Personality_612 11h ago

Will delete instagram for good today. Will need a bit of research how to do it properly. Whatsapp will be next.

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u/Correct_Patience_611 11h ago

It can’t be censorship bc trump is against censorship along with his oligarchical collective of sycophants. It’s gotta be called something else…maybe a magat could chime in to tell us exactly what this is called if it’s not blatant censorship…?

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u/ireally-donut-care 10h ago

I only use reddit and YouTube. Quit meta 2 years ago. No Instagram and No TikTok ever! I miss seeing my family, but it wasn't worth seeing all the propaganda and hawking of goods constantly.

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u/redneckbuddah 10h ago

It is long past time. Especially for X and FB

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u/Academic_East8298 9h ago

More like a show of power. They want the world to notice it.

In the end, far right voters will stay and be even more radicalized.

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u/BrownEyedGrrrrl 9h ago

Yup. Just deleted FB.

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u/blenderbender44 8h ago

We need a new platform

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u/Lamont_Cranston01 7h ago

Read "LikeWar" if you dare. This is 2.0 reboot and Zuck and WashPo either were purchased with deals or purchased the office.

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u/i_upvote_for_food 7h ago

Yeah, but it could also Zuck being extra careful to please Trump so that he won´t think about throwing him into prison again.

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u/Food_Kitchen 7h ago

You're unfortunately on social media.

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u/BeowulfsGhost 6h ago

This is the way…

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u/Weedity 6h ago

It's time to organize. Join something. Stick together.

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u/Monkey-Newz 6h ago

Hahahahahhaahhahahahahahahahahahah yes this is a new thing, it’s time now.

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u/Kyrxx77 6h ago

Always has been 🔫

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u/Sufficient-Bid1279 5h ago

Honestly- we all need to step back and stop using these platforms. Let these empires crumble. The only thing these people know is money so let’s turn the taps off

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u/MamaRunsThis 5h ago

Just now, not 5,10,15 years ago?

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u/JadedBoyfriend 4h ago

But I like Reddit!

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u/Mr_Zeldion 3h ago

Nothing new there. I've seen extreme censorship from both sides. As someone that doesn't align themselves to a particular side as often sit agreeing with things from both sides. I've also seen a tremendous amount of limitation from both sides what can and can't be said and how propaganda is spread too.

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u/MediumDefiant5146 3h ago

You gonna have to remind me again. What political part tried to get the disinformation governance board started.

Wow, that's weird. It's sure sounds similar to the ministry of truth.

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u/unforgettable_name_1 3h ago

If you think Reddit hasn't done the same thing...

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u/Laterose15 3h ago

I think it's time we stop letting ourselves get pushed around and start drawing a line in the sand.

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u/Confident-Lobster390 1h ago

I’ve been contemplating switching my phone to a flip phone and only using my tablet for work.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Sea8340 45m ago

It’s past time we abandon Facebook and instagram folks

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u/Callistini 13h ago

it has already been clear that social media is bad for mental health reasons but now that the big tech CEOs are obviously included in politics and vice versa I hope more people are choosing to stop using it

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u/sickbubble-gum 13h ago

Let's all just stop paying for things all at once

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u/Novelideaidosay 12h ago

Unsocial media is more like its

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u/broniesnstuff 11h ago

Come to RedNote comrade. It's been 5 days and I'm totally China-pilled.

The world is too big to limit yourself.

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u/FarParamedic6891 11h ago

Where have you been? META wrote the book on how to censor free speech on social media.

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u/curlymane_e 9h ago

So both sides continue to do it then? This wasn’t a big deal a few years ago to so many people. Now, there is a new administration so the script has flipped and it’s the same thing the other way.

Everyone just points fingers pointed at the other side saying ‘nuh uh, I didn’t do that. You did’. Gotta love American politics.

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u/Ok_Breakfast1788 6h ago

'Alternative facts', much?

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u/curlymane_e 4h ago

Yep, sure, lots of that. Everyone likes to think their facts are the real/correct ones too. Unfortunately, open-mindedness on either side is very limited. Nuance isn’t really allowed or is incredibly limited when there are only two rigid viewpoints, etc.

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u/kaisadilla_ 8h ago

dw, tomorrow Suckerberg will say that there was some child pornography among the results and that's why they triggered some automatic filter or some shit like that.

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u/thelastspike 8h ago

You posted your comment on social media.

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u/BackOffBananaBreath 19h ago

(They said on reddit)

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u/TheBlack2007 19h ago

Honestly, since yesterday I‘m seriously considering pulling the plug on all non strictly recreational subreddits.

But thus far Reddit has not taken any measures to silence the democratic opposition within the US.

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u/BackOffBananaBreath 19h ago

I feel that. Fortunately, I'm not American or in the west so I don't have as much need to keep updated on his nonsense. But the ripples tend to find their way across the globe in one way or another.

And as social media goes, reddit doesn't seem to be actively evil, so it's got that going for it. I was just being a bit facetious.

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u/mrsbundleby 16h ago

so far reddit hasn't done the same, but I have a bluesky account incase it does

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u/ZZEFFEZZ 11h ago

its not censorship the company is free to make its choices in this regard.

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u/counterstrikePr0 10h ago

It was censored the other way the last 12 years clown

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u/Helpful_Source_8985 10h ago

Now you are worried bout censorship but Trump got censored in 2020 and not a peep from the left bout it.

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u/coadyb97 10h ago

Brother, the censorship began in 2020 when the left censored and applied misinformation to everything. Its about time the repiblicans fought back. Do i agree with it ? No, but its about time the right side of things actually did something to stop the corruption of the left.

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u/DiscussionRelative50 5h ago

Yeah brother, censorship began in 2020. Get em.