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šØMAJOR BREAKING NEWS: In a defeat that has left #MAGA STUNNED, #Democrat John Ewing Jr. has just won the mayoral race in deep red Omaha, Nebraska, defeating twelve-year #GOP incumbent Mayor Jean Stothert.
This makes him the first Black mayor in the history of the city.
More:
Omaha was the sixth-largest Republican-led city in the nation.
Notice I said was.
This spells disaster for #Republicans in the midterms.
Why is Meta labelling Trumpās Real mug shot as a fake?
Click here to listen to an audio version of this post, read by the author.
I recently blogged about how Instagram was blocking a large list of hashtags specifically related to the American Democratic Party. Dozens of tags like #Democrat, #Biden, #Kamala, and #DNC were being censored, but Republican tags were not affected. Today I found another weird issue that I thought was worth documenting here.
Whenever users post Donald Trumpās booking photo from the Fulton County Jail, Meta adds a āfact checkā beneath the post claiming the photo is ānot realā and āmade using AIā. I saw other users pointing this out, so I gave it a try too.
When I posted Trumpās mug shot on Threads, I got a notification saying a āfact checkā had been added to my post. The note appeared under my post and said āsee context added to this postā. When you clicked on the post youād see a message saying, āFact Check: Trump āMug Shotā Is NOT Real ā It Was Made Using AIā along with a link to a site called Lead Stories. The story was written April of 2023, a few months before the real mug shot of Trump was taken. It is unrelated to my post and includes a totally different image than the one I shared.
I filed a ādisputeā on the fact check and received a notification 20 minutes later that my dispute had been denied and the label would remain under my post.
My post was later shared by a few influential users on Threads, including someone who had recently been tagged in a post from Zuckerberg himself. And on the next morning, I found that the added context had been removed from my post with no explanation or notifications from Meta. It seems that my postās visibility drew attention from someone at Meta, who removed the fact check from my specific post, but not from any others. As of this writing, the note still appears under a post by @TeddyHose.
The problem Persists:
To confirm this is still happening, I just shared Trumpās mug shot on Facebook and immediately got a notification that the image is still being incorrectly labelled by Metaās moderation system. The Facebook notification specifies that my āpost includes a photo that independent fact-checkers say was altered.ā Other folks have confirmed this too, and I encourage you to try sharing Trumpās mug shot photo to see if itās still happening too.
My thoughts:
Metaās fact check on my post takes you to a link from early 2023 that includes a photo that looks totally different from the image that I shared. The article was accurate at the time it was written, but statements like āNo credible outlet has published a police mugshot of Trump.ā were no longer accurate a few months later.
It appears that Meta has a big database of images that always get flagged with a fact check. For some reason, an employee added Trumpās real mug shot to this database and connected that real photo with a real, but unrelated news article. Thus blurring the lines of what is and isnāt real on these platforms. Itās hard to understand how such a glaring error could take place and why it hasnāt been corrected in the past 18 months, but the end result is the same.
Again, the two photos look nothing alike, and Meta has had years to correct this. For added context, keep in mind this issue is happening
- 18 days after Zuckerberg said he was ending Metaās fact-checking program
- During the first week of Trumpās second term
- Shortly after Meta was caught censoring all of the most popular hashtags related to Democrats on Instagram
Last year, Facebook also added incorrect labels on articles that were critical of Project 2025. Even if the article was accurate, Facebook added a message saying the articles were false and cited the Dispatch, a conservative fact-checking group, as their source.
Mark Zuckerberg claims that Meta shouldnāt be in the business of fact-checking and that community notes would be a better alternative. Iād say heās right in this particular instance, but if you take these erroneous fact checks along with other recent incidents, like censoring all hashtags related to Democrats, Iād say Zuckerberg is really making a case for why we should be ditching Facebook, and using decentralized social media alternatives like Mastodon and Pixelfed.
The Day Instagram Blocked Democracy
Listen to an audio version of this long-ass post.
On the day of Trumpās second presidential inauguration, Instagram censored search results for the most popular hashtags associated with American Democrats, like ā#Democratā, ā#PresidentBidenā, ā#VoteBlueā, ā#MichelleObamaā, ā#Kamalaā, and dozens more. This ban lasted for 9 total hours and affected users worldwide, regardless of their content settings. During that same time, Instagram was displaying full search results for ā#Republicanā, ā#Trumpā, ā#VoteRedā, ā#PresidentTrumpā, and every other popular Republican hashtag I tried. I found about 50 censored political tags related to Democrats, but every Republican tag was still working fine.
The removal of these pro-Democrat hashtags started on the evening of January 20th, 2025, coincidentally a few hours after Trump signed the āRestoring Freedom Of Speechā executive act. These censored results lasted for about 9 hours, then went back to normal at around 5 am PST. I want to state again that these words were censored for all Instagram users on the website and app regardless of that userās content settings or their location.
Meta claimed this was a technical āerrorā affecting hashtags āacross the political spectrum,ā but this is demonstrably false. I searched through the most popular hashtags used by Democrats and Republicans last night and found that the majority of Democrat terms were being censored, while none of the popular Republican tags were affected. This selective censorship is a scary look into Metaās updated content moderation practices and its potential alignment with the new administration.The following hashtags were actively blocked by Instagram on the first day of Trumpās second presidency. While they are now searchable again, I personally confirmed all of these hashtags were inaccessible last night:
- Barack
- BarackObama
- Bernie
- BernieSanders
- Biden
- Constitution
- Democrat
- Democrats
- DNC
- Fascism
- FuckTrump
- Insurrection
- Jan6th
- JohnOliver
- JoeBiden
- Kamala
- Leftist
- Liberal
- Liberals
- MichelleObama
- Obama
- OccupyDemocrats
- PresidentBiden
- PresidentObama
- Queer
- ReproductiveRights
- VoteBlue
And those were just the ones I could find yesterday. Iām sure there are many more. Instagram is still blocking other hashtags like ProChoice, GeorgeConway (a writer critical of Trump), JackSmith (the special counsel against Trump), 14thAmendment, and Drumpf. Itās possible those words were already being censored before Trumpās inauguration, so I didnāt include them on the list above.During that same 9-hour window, I confirmed the following words were not being censored on IG:
- AltRight
- DonaldJTrump
- DonaldTrump
- FuckObama
- FuckBiden
- FuckKamala
- LetsGoBrandon
- MelaniaTrump
- PresidentTrump
- Republican
- RNC
- Trump
- VoteRed
Those words all worked. You couldnāt search for FuckTrump, but you could search for FuckObama or FuckBiden. Trump was searchable, but Biden, Kamala, Bernie, and Obama were not. You could search for MelaniaTrump, but not MichelleObama. PresidentTrump still showed millions of results, while discussions of PresidentBiden were marked as āsensitive contentā.We donāt know what caused Meta to censor these words, but we do know this was not affecting āboth sides.ā. This was an extremely targeted list of censored words.
As a contrast, I saw several claims on Threads and IG that TikTok was also heavily censoring content. I tested it out for myself and was still fully able to search for words like āFascist,ā āFascism,ā āDemocrat,ā and āTrumpā. I was also able to post pro-Palestinian content like āFree Palestineā without having the post removed. If TikTok is censoring content, they are being more clever about it than Instagram is.
Though we can prove that Instagram was censoring certain hashtags last night, we canāt say why they were doing it. Itās possible this really was a computer error with no human oversight, but Iāve never heard of a computer bug that only affects people based on their political affiliation.
To understand why this happened, take a look at the context surrounding it. Last year, Trump accused Zuckerberg of election interference and threatened to lock Mark up āfor lifeā. After Trump won the election, Zuckerberg started a series of regular visits to Mar-a-Lago for private meetings with the President-Elect. Last week, Zuckerberg announced big changes to Metaās content moderation team and added Dana White (a Trump loyalist) to Metaās board. Yesterday, Zuckerberg attended Trumpās inauguration along with Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Shou Zi Chew, and several other of the richest tech oligarchs.
With all of that in mind, I find it unlikely that an Instagram error selectively silencing Trumpās political opponents would coincidentally occur on the first day of his second presidency. Given the state of *gestures broadly at everything around me*, I believe that Meta has many systems in place to quickly silence Trumpās political opponents, and last night we saw one of those systems being used. If Meta really did have an āerrorā yesterday, it was probably that they activated that system too early.
#Biden
#Obama
#Kamala
#Trump
#BarackObama
#DonaldTrump
#MichelleObama
#MelanieTrump
#Democrat
#Republican
#leftist
#AltRight
#Liberal
#conservative
#OccupyDemocrats
#Maga
#VoteBlue
#GOP
#PresidentBiden
#AltRight #BarackObama #Biden #conservative #Democrat #DonaldTrump #facebook #gop #instagram #Kamala #leftist #Liberal #Maga #MelanieTrump #MichelleObama #obama_ #OccupyDemocrats #PresidentBiden #republican #trump #VoteBlue
The rise of Dana White, from UFC to Trump ally and Meta's board
UFC CEO Dana White's star is rising. He is a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump and Meta has announced he would join its board of directors.Lauren Edmonds (Business Insider)
The Day Instagram Blocked Democracy
Listen to an audio version of this long-ass post.
On the day of Trumpās second presidential inauguration, Instagram censored search results for the most popular hashtags associated with American Democrats, like ā#Democratā, ā#PresidentBidenā, ā#VoteBlueā, ā#MichelleObamaā, ā#Kamalaā, and dozens more. This ban lasted for 9 total hours and affected users worldwide, regardless of their content settings. During that same time, Instagram was displaying full search results for ā#Republicanā, ā#Trumpā, ā#VoteRedā, ā#PresidentTrumpā, and every other popular Republican hashtag I tried. I found about 50 censored political tags related to Democrats, but every Republican tag was still working fine.
The removal of these pro-Democrat hashtags started on the evening of January 20th, 2025, coincidentally a few hours after Trump signed the āRestoring Freedom Of Speechā executive act. These censored results lasted for about 9 hours, then went back to normal at around 5 am PST. I want to state again that these words were censored for all Instagram users on the website and app regardless of that userās content settings or their location.
Meta claimed this was a technical āerrorā affecting hashtags āacross the political spectrum,ā but this is demonstrably false. I searched through the most popular hashtags used by Democrats and Republicans last night and found that the majority of Democrat terms were being censored, while none of the popular Republican tags were affected. This selective censorship is a scary look into Metaās updated content moderation practices and its potential alignment with the new administration.
The following hashtags were actively blocked by Instagram on the first day of Trumpās second presidency. While they are now searchable again, I personally confirmed all of these hashtags were inaccessible last night:
- Barack
- BarackObama
- Bernie
- BernieSanders
- Biden
- Constitution
- Democrat
- Democrats
- DNC
- Fascism
- FuckTrump
- Insurrection
- Jan6th
- JohnOliver
- JoeBiden
- Kamala
- Leftist
- Liberal
- Liberals
- MichelleObama
- Obama
- OccupyDemocrats
- PresidentBiden
- PresidentObama
- Queer
- ReproductiveRights
- VoteBlue
And those were just the ones I could find yesterday. Iām sure there are many more. Instagram is still blocking other hashtags like ProChoice, GeorgeConway (a writer critical of Trump), JackSmith (the special counsel against Trump), 14thAmendment, and Drumpf. Itās possible those words were already being censored before Trumpās inauguration, so I didnāt include them on the list above.
During that same 9-hour window, I confirmed the following words were not being censored on IG:
- AltRight
- DonaldJTrump
- DonaldTrump
- FuckObama
- FuckBiden
- FuckKamala
- LetsGoBrandon
- MelaniaTrump
- PresidentTrump
- Republican
- RNC
- Trump
- VoteRed
Those words all worked. You couldnāt search for FuckTrump, but you could search for FuckObama or FuckBiden. Trump was searchable, but Biden, Kamala, Bernie, and Obama were not. You could search for MelaniaTrump, but not MichelleObama. PresidentTrump still showed millions of results, while discussions of PresidentBiden were marked as āsensitive contentā.
We donāt know what caused Meta to censor these words, but we do know this was not affecting āboth sides.ā. This was an extremely targeted list of censored words.
As a contrast, I saw several claims on Threads and IG that TikTok was also heavily censoring content. I tested it out for myself and was still fully able to search for words like āFascist,ā āFascism,ā āDemocrat,ā and āTrumpā. I was also able to post pro-Palestinian content like āFree Palestineā without having the post removed. If TikTok is censoring content, they are being more clever about it than Instagram is.
Though we can prove that Instagram was censoring certain hashtags last night, we canāt say why they were doing it. Itās possible this really was a computer error with no human oversight, but Iāve never heard of a computer bug that only affects people based on their political affiliation.
To understand why this happened, take a look at the context surrounding it. Last year, Trump accused Zuckerberg of election interference and threatened to lock Mark up āfor lifeā. After Trump won the election, Zuckerberg started a series of regular visits to Mar-a-Lago for private meetings with the President-Elect. Last week, Zuckerberg announced big changes to Metaās content moderation team and added Dana White (a Trump loyalist) to Metaās board. Yesterday, Zuckerberg attended Trumpās inauguration along with Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Shou Zi Chew, and several other of the richest tech oligarchs.
With all of that in mind, I find it unlikely that an Instagram error selectively silencing Trumpās political opponents would coincidentally occur on the first day of his second presidency. Given the state of *gestures broadly at everything around me*, I believe that Meta has many systems in place to quickly silence Trumpās political opponents, and last night we saw one of those systems being used. If Meta really did have an āerrorā yesterday, it was probably that they activated that system too early.
#AltRight #BarackObama #Biden #conservative #Democrat #DonaldTrump #facebook #gop #instagram #Kamala #leftist #Liberal #Maga #MelanieTrump #MichelleObama #obama_ #OccupyDemocrats #PresidentBiden #republican #trump #VoteBlue
The rise of Dana White, from UFC to Trump ally and Meta's board
UFC CEO Dana White's star is rising. He is a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump and Meta has announced he would join its board of directors.Lauren Edmonds (Business Insider)