Meta says it is working quickly to resolve the problem, which has prompted accusations of bias on social media.

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.

  • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
    21·
    24 hours ago

    Remember when the Facebook Graph API first launched and people used it to find all the gay people in their city?

    This is why privacy matters.

    • superkret@feddit.org
      371·
      1 day 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
        4·
        9 hours 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
          2·
          7 hours 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.zipEnglish
      19·
      1 day 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
      18·
      1 day 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
      15·
      1 day 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.worldEnglish
    38·
    24 hours 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
      19·
      1 day 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.zipEnglish
    251·
    1 day 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.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        16 hours ago

        Is Signal legally required to interface with WhatsApp by the EU?

        I… don’t think so?

        Why would it?

        Neither Signal nor WhatsApp are specifically mandated by the EU to be interoperable as far as I know.

        If you mean: Doesn’t GDPR require mobile/pc apps to not gather or store metadata?

        Then also, no, not really?

        https://www.gdpr-advisor.com/gdpr-compliance-for-mobile-apps-securing-user-data-in-the-age-of-mobile-technology/

        Mobile apps must process personal data in a lawful and transparent manner. Users should be informed clearly about how their data is collected, what it will be used for, and who it will be shared with.

        Lawfulness: Data processing must have a lawful basis, such as user consent, performance of a contract, or legitimate interest.

        Did you accept the WhatsApp Terms of Service?

        Congrats, Meta(Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp) will argue you consented to having your metadata harvested.

        Do you see the cheekiness of why Facebook renamed itself to Meta?

        Their core business model is trafficking, hoarding and selling ‘meta’ data, its right in the name.

        • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
          3·
          16 hours ago

          Yes, the EU required apps to be interoperable. It was after GDPR. It became law in April 2024 iirc

          • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zipEnglish
            1·
            15 hours ago

            Could you link me this law? Or do you know its name?

            EDIT: Also, like … what are the boundaries of this law?

            Does Steam Messaging now have to integrate directly with WhatsApp?

            Does Instagram have to be able to send messages directly to Tiktok?

              • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zipEnglish
                2·
                8 hours ago

                Doesn’t apply to Signal.

                It applies to apps with large marketshare, maintained by for profit entities over 7.5 billion euro revenue in the EEA for 3 years or over 75 billion euro marketcap , and ironically it seems like the only apps actually currently doing anything to meaningfully comply with it are tiny, non profit maintained apps.

                • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
                  1·
                  6 hours ago

                  Yeah. So WhatsApp and, umm, Facebook chat. What other apps do people use from huge for profit companies? Maybe Google Meet?

              • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zipEnglish
                1·
                14 hours ago

                All this says is that WhatsApp is required to be interoperable with Signal’s EE2E protocol.

                It does not say that Signal has to has to be interoperable with WhatsApp, that Signal is required to make any changes to comply with the DMA.

                The entire problem here is that Signal, in addition to using its own EE2E standard, also uses its own additional method called Sealed Sender to also encrypt and obfuscate the metadata of a message, which WhatsApp does not do and is not required to do.

                Further, WhatsApp stores and logs metadata, Signal does not.

                Were a Signal user to send a message to WhatsApp, well Signal would have to disable its Sealed Sender features to do this, and then WhatsApp would have the Signal user’s metadata, which they would then sell to databrokers and provide to governments upon subpoena.

                If your metadata is not secure, you are not secure.

                • tired_n_bored@lemmy.world
                  11·
                  12 hours ago

                  Yeah I meant WhatsApp, being a monopoly, has to integrate with other services, but it has nothing to do with Signal. Specifically WA is working with an integration with Matrix tho

  • Kyrgizion@lemmy.world
    11·
    1 day ago

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

  • blakenong@lemmings.worldEnglish
    3·
    1 day 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?

  • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
    24·
    24 hours ago

    I read this as “fascists are querying Instagram to build a list of people to attack, so Meta is defending these people by blocking such queries”

  • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    594·
    1 day ago

    Oh God, have we come full circle? 8 years ago this would be the same article but about how meta was blocking conservatives…

        • The2b@lemmy.vgEnglish
          29·
          1 day ago

          I’m not seeing where in that article it says the Supreme Court confirmed that conservatives were being blocked by social media, let alone that social media was being forced to by the government. Can you clip me the excerpt i’m missing?

          • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
            116·
            1 day ago

            The dispute was primarily over standing.

            The lawsuit centers on “jawboning,” a term used to describe informal efforts by government officials to persuade someone outside the government to take action. In this case, the plaintiffs – two states with Republican attorneys general and several individuals whose social media posts were removed or downgraded – challenged the Biden administration’s efforts in 2021 to restrict misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine. They argued that the administration’s actions had violated social media users’ rights to free speech.

            Amy Coney Barrett claims the censorship happened before any communication with the White House or the CDC…

            Barrett acknowledged, “Facebook was targeting her pages before almost all of its communications with the White House and the CDC, which weakens the inference that her subsequent restrictions are likely traceable to ‘government-coerced enforcement’ of Facebook’s policies.”

            But as Samuel Alito notes…

            “[f]or months in 2021 and 2022, a coterie of officials at the highest levels of the Federal Government continuously harried and implicitly threatened Facebook with potentially crippling consequences if it did not comply with their wishes about the suppression of certain COVID-19-related speech. Not surprisingly,” Alito concluded, “Facebook repeatedly yielded.”

            While standing was denied, and the censorship may have happened before the White House requested it, it’s clear the admin wanted this to happen. Otherwise the communications over this stuff wouldn’t have taken place.

        • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
          15·
          1 day ago

          That was not about government censorship. That was about the government being able to discuss with corporations what harmful things should be self-filtered by the corporations.

          Also, since those things the government in that lawsuit wanted filtered were false and harmful misinformation related to election security and COVID, it seems conservatives equate harmful and fake shit as “conservative.”

    • Skyrmir@lemmy.worldEnglish
      28·
      1 day ago

      You mean the company that hired Cambridge Analytics to help Trump win the first time was censoring conservative sources? I don’t think so.

      • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        328·
        1 day ago

        Why do people seem to think I’m saying that Meta was blocking conservatives? Are Lemmykins that bad at comprehension or are they too just egged along by the rage machine to the point where they can’t think clearly?

          • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            17·
            24 hours ago

            8 years ago this would be the same article but about how meta was blocking conservatives

            So comprehension then. Thanks!

            • zaph@sh.itjust.works
              7·
              23 hours ago

              IDK dog if this many people misunderstood my point I’d be trying better not doubling down on blaming them but you do you

              • atzanteol@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                18·
                23 hours ago

                I’m happy to accept that there are a lot of stupid people on Lemmy, particularly the politics communities.

        • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
          17·
          1 day ago

          Why do people seem to think I’m saying that Meta was blocking conservatives?

          Because your literal words were “the same article but about how meta was blocking conservatives.” Please tell the class how saying “meta was blocking conservatives” does NOT mean “Meta was blocking conservatives.”