Would be useful to know who gave the order (article doesn't say).
It could be an Insta mod messed up, a blame the AI situation, the company self-censoring, or maybe a threatening DM from the government. All of which have precedent.
Hard to have an informed opinion without more details.
Incidents like this are common enough, that this is what the system does. If it’s AI, or rogue mods, or zuck himself, it doesn’t matter because this is what the system is doing - and if this wasn’t an acceptable outcome to meta the system would be changed.
I love that somehow you guys have made a liberal country’s liberal strip club losing their account to a very liberal organization… a conservative attack.
Do you guys really not see how reliant you are on the hate?
Well, the joke by itself was enough to write an article about. Simple, hilarious, and we need a lot more of this. A bit sad that it's a strip club sticking it to the man, but perhaps that's appropriate too.
But as for claiming that there are "not enough actual facts" -- are you really suggesting that the takedown of the insta account was coincidental, and entirely unrelated to the sign?
1. A Canadian business posted an image of a sign criticizing the US administration
2. Soon after, their Instagram account was suspended.
3. This has happened before with their Twitter account, which they were able to get restored after a week.
But you already knew that, and instead are making passive-aggressive insinuations. If you want to make an actual argument, make it.
As for me, that along with the other facts I know about the Trump administration are more than enough to form an opinion: this isn’t evidence of a politically-motivated takedown, but it certainly fits the administration’s character, and I’m not going to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Meta is well known for having strict rules on nudity[0], particularly the display of women’s nipples. I would want to know the base rate at which the instagram accounts of strip clubs get suspended before assuming the motive was political.
That’s a pretty reasonable hypothesis. The article says that they’re careful with what they post, but I haven’t actually looked up their content. It’s also possible that Meta just doesn’t want strip clubs on their platform at all, regardless of what they post.
Another red flag of bigtech domination being terrible for digital democracy. At least Europe has now got this message loud and clear,and some govts/etc are using self hosted Mastodon (and Nextcloud, AI models...). Eurosky might be good but we have to wait and see, though it can also be self hosted through AT protocol. Decentralised, federated social media is now bottom line essential for diverse opinion with different, independently controlled moderation systems.
Since when has Facebook been associated with MAGA? They were famously part of the attempt to get Trump banned [0] from social media that led to Truth Social. Their moderation team tends anti-MAGA to the point where it is an international political concern.
And, assuming that the article is accurate, obviously they shouldn't have banned an account for posting "Can't handle a pool, but wants our lake?". I think everyone would agree outside the Facebook team. That would be a classic Facebook over-moderation. Extreme to the point where I'm going to assume there is more to the story.
"Oh, being bribed/extorted by the government we took control-of doesn't count, because internally the lügenpresse still has unreasonably biased employees. But don't worry, we will fix that soon..." /s
Hope it gets more countries to do their own thing; it's rather insane companies are dependent on social media for marketing while they control 0% of that social media and can be wiped out by some silly AI (aka cheap; you don't want Astra/Fable scanning all our photos, you use some lobotomised model which barfs out false pos/neg all day long) or Stasi Ministry of Censorship. At least locally I can just get in a car and drive up to hear what's up and I understand the laws and know what my rights are while in the US, I have 0 rights.
That is why less capable clones of US services get so much attention at the moment.
Every time these end up on HN, someone says something along the lines of: ”I would not host in a country without 1st amendment rights.”
Are the tech companies actively censoring or subtly deranking pro-Canada sentiment on their platforms? Or is this some activist doing takedowns?
Would be useful to know who gave the order (article doesn't say).
It could be an Insta mod messed up, a blame the AI situation, the company self-censoring, or maybe a threatening DM from the government. All of which have precedent.
Hard to have an informed opinion without more details.
The purpose of a system is what it does.
Incidents like this are common enough, that this is what the system does. If it’s AI, or rogue mods, or zuck himself, it doesn’t matter because this is what the system is doing - and if this wasn’t an acceptable outcome to meta the system would be changed.
How do you know it isn't being changed?
I don’t. But given it didn’t change the last n times it happened, i’m doubtful.
Whats makes you think it is being changed?
Right. Freedom of expression when MAGA, but not for others.
Who is the snowflake now?
Ladies and gentlemen, meet the party of "fuck your feelings" and "humor is legal again..."
And please, no fake canned complaints about "politicizing." The story is nakedly political from top to bottom (no pun intended).
I love that somehow you guys have made a liberal country’s liberal strip club losing their account to a very liberal organization… a conservative attack.
Do you guys really not see how reliant you are on the hate?
Can one of the undoubtedly many meta employees reading this comment section speculate on why this happened?
So "it appears" ...
Not enough actual facts in the article to form an opinion or even write the article about.
Well, the joke by itself was enough to write an article about. Simple, hilarious, and we need a lot more of this. A bit sad that it's a strip club sticking it to the man, but perhaps that's appropriate too.
But as for claiming that there are "not enough actual facts" -- are you really suggesting that the takedown of the insta account was coincidental, and entirely unrelated to the sign?
The facts are quite clear:
1. A Canadian business posted an image of a sign criticizing the US administration
2. Soon after, their Instagram account was suspended.
3. This has happened before with their Twitter account, which they were able to get restored after a week.
But you already knew that, and instead are making passive-aggressive insinuations. If you want to make an actual argument, make it.
As for me, that along with the other facts I know about the Trump administration are more than enough to form an opinion: this isn’t evidence of a politically-motivated takedown, but it certainly fits the administration’s character, and I’m not going to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Meta is well known for having strict rules on nudity[0], particularly the display of women’s nipples. I would want to know the base rate at which the instagram accounts of strip clubs get suspended before assuming the motive was political.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g734pj22zo
That’s a pretty reasonable hypothesis. The article says that they’re careful with what they post, but I haven’t actually looked up their content. It’s also possible that Meta just doesn’t want strip clubs on their platform at all, regardless of what they post.
But maybe it was because they started getting lots of attention and someone noticed they are promoting a strip club?
Yep, that would make sense.
Drove past the club yesterday, the sign is still up with the lake joke.
Another red flag of bigtech domination being terrible for digital democracy. At least Europe has now got this message loud and clear,and some govts/etc are using self hosted Mastodon (and Nextcloud, AI models...). Eurosky might be good but we have to wait and see, though it can also be self hosted through AT protocol. Decentralised, federated social media is now bottom line essential for diverse opinion with different, independently controlled moderation systems.
I thought MAGA supported freedom of speech? Didn’t they have a meeting with Zuckerberg about censorship many years ago? What a joke the US has become.
Only if it doesn’t embarrass his orangeness.
Vancouver is in Canada.
Neither the city of Vancouver B.C. nor the country of Canada took down the Vancouver nightclub's Instagram account though.
That was either accidental auto moderation or a testy and likely MAGA aligned person of influence (inside or outside of Meta).
Either way, not a good look for Freedom of Speech.
Freedom of speech only for a small part of only the US then? So not the ideal of freedom of speech, but the dictatorial version of freedom of speech?
Instagram is not.
there is a Vancouver, Washington, down near Portland, Oregon
The much larger Vancouver, and the one that this is about, is in Canada.
There is also Vancouver Island, which is separate from the other two.
All are named after Captain George Vancouver. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Vancouver
I didn’t realize that someone from Washington State would think of Lake Ontario as theirs?
Since when has Facebook been associated with MAGA? They were famously part of the attempt to get Trump banned [0] from social media that led to Truth Social. Their moderation team tends anti-MAGA to the point where it is an international political concern.
And, assuming that the article is accurate, obviously they shouldn't have banned an account for posting "Can't handle a pool, but wants our lake?". I think everyone would agree outside the Facebook team. That would be a classic Facebook over-moderation. Extreme to the point where I'm going to assume there is more to the story.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_use_by_Donald_Tru...
"Oh, being bribed/extorted by the government we took control-of doesn't count, because internally the lügenpresse still has unreasonably biased employees. But don't worry, we will fix that soon..." /s
Facebook/Meta happily hires GOP operatives and has done so for years.
Hope it gets more countries to do their own thing; it's rather insane companies are dependent on social media for marketing while they control 0% of that social media and can be wiped out by some silly AI (aka cheap; you don't want Astra/Fable scanning all our photos, you use some lobotomised model which barfs out false pos/neg all day long) or Stasi Ministry of Censorship. At least locally I can just get in a car and drive up to hear what's up and I understand the laws and know what my rights are while in the US, I have 0 rights.