The Day Instagram Blocked Democracy

Listen to an audio version of this long-ass post.
On the day of Trump’s second presidential inauguration, Instagram censored search results for the most popular hashtags associated with American Democrats, like “#Democrat”, “#PresidentBiden”, “#VoteBlue”, “#MichelleObama”, “#Kamala”, 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 “#Republican”, “#Trump”, “#VoteRed”, “#PresidentTrump”, 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 “Restoring Freedom Of Speech” 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 user’s content settings or their location.

Meta claimed this was a technical “error” affecting hashtags “across the political spectrum,” 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 Meta’s 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 Trump’s 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. I’m 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. It’s possible those words were already being censored before Trump’s inauguration, so I didn’t 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 couldn’t 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 “sensitive content”.

We don’t know what caused Meta to censor these words, but we do know this was not affecting “both sides.”. 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 “Fascist,” “Fascism,” “Democrat,” and “Trump”. I was also able to post pro-Palestinian content like “Free Palestine” 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 can’t say why they were doing it. It’s possible this really was a computer error with no human oversight, but I’ve 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 “for life”. 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 Meta’s content moderation team and added Dana White (a Trump loyalist) to Meta’s board. Yesterday, Zuckerberg attended Trump’s 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 Trump’s 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 Trump’s political opponents, and last night we saw one of those systems being used. If Meta really did have an “error” 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

22.02.2025 Trump Kritik führt zu Polizeieinsatz

Unterdrückung beginnt auch im Kleinen

Selbst einen Ex-NFL-Profi schützt seine "typische US-Karriere" nicht. Chris Kluwe sprach bei einer Anhörung vor einem Kommunalausschuss in Huntington Beach, südlich von Los Angeles. Es ging bei dieser Bürgeranhörung um eine Gedenktafel, die die Kommunalverwaltung an der örtlichen Bücherei anbringen wollte.

In seiner Rede sagte er, dass er für die Gedenktafel sei aber nicht einverstanden sei, dass die Verwaltung auch eine Huldigung von Trumps MAGA-Bewegung in dem Text untergebracht hatte.

T-Online.de zitiert Kluwe mit den Worten: "Als Bürger von Huntington Beach, der seit 15 Jahren hier lebt, wehre ich mich vehement gegen diese Plakette."

Dann zählte er auf, wofür seiner Meinung nach die MAGA-Bewegung steht, nämlich für die Auslöschung der Existenz von Transmenschen, für Zensur und Bücherverbote, für Rassentrennung und Rassismus, für die Bedrohung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung und für die Kürzung von Bildungsmitteln, insbesondere für Kinder mit Behinderungen, schreibt T-Online.de weiter.

Er schloss mit den Worten "MAGA ist zutiefst korrupt, eindeutig antidemokratisch und vor allem ist MAGA ausdrücklich eine Nazi-Bewegung. Sie haben vielleicht ein Hakenkreuz durch eine rote Schirmmütze ersetzt, aber das ist es, was es ist."

Als er das Rednerpult in der Gemeindeversammlung verließ, sagte er noch, dass er von seinem verfassungsgemäßen Recht auf friedlichen Widerstand Gebrauch machen werde, wurde er von Polizeibeamten zu Boden gebracht und in Handschellen abgeführt. Ihm droht jetzt ein Verfahren wegen einer Ordnungswidrigkeit - worin diese auch immer bestanden haben soll ...

So dünn ist das Eis für den demokratischen Diskurs, wenn sich die Machtverhältnisse erst einmal geändert haben ...

Mehr dazu bei https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/ausland/usa/id_100607358/donald-trump-von-chris-kluwe-kritisiert-ex-nfl-profi-festgenommen.html
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Elon Musks racks in $8 millions a day of government money - Ploud Video France

#politics #USA #corruption #Musk #MAGA #DOGE

I don’t think I have any MAGA in my network but hopefully this post will reach some because I’m DYING to read what they think about this. 😂

Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed slasher of government waste, is pocketing a cool $8 million every single day from federal contracts. Yes, you read that right. While preaching fiscal responsibility, Musk’s companies, notably SpaceX and Tesla, are raking in taxpayer dollars like it’s a Black Friday sale.

In a recent House hearing, Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) didn’t mince words: “How much does Elon Musk make from the government a day? $8 million.” Meanwhile, seniors on Social Security are scraping by on $65 a day. Priorities, am I right?

But wait, there’s more! Musk’s latest venture, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is on a mission to cut federal spending. And by “cut,” we mean slashing funds for FEMA’s migrant assistance and axing diversity training programs. All while his companies continue to secure billion-dollar contracts. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.

So, as Musk and his cronies preach about tightening belts and eliminating waste, just remember where those “savings” are going. Straight into the pockets of the world’s richest man. Efficiency never looked so profitable.

https://video.ploud.fr/w/7Qh3V7VY5ZR6QTJ2cPZiiR

I don’t think I have any MAGA in my network but hopefully this post will reach some because I’m DYING to read what they think about this. 😂

Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed slasher of government waste, is pocketing a cool $8 million every single day from federal contracts. Yes, you read that right. While preaching fiscal responsibility, Musk’s companies, notably SpaceX and Tesla, are raking in taxpayer dollars like it’s a Black Friday sale.

In a recent House hearing, Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) didn’t mince words: “How much does Elon Musk make from the government a day? $8 million.” Meanwhile, seniors on Social Security are scraping by on $65 a day. Priorities, am I right?

But wait, there’s more! Musk’s latest venture, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is on a mission to cut federal spending. And by “cut,” we mean slashing funds for FEMA’s migrant assistance and axing diversity training programs. All while his companies continue to secure billion-dollar contracts. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.

So, as Musk and his cronies preach about tightening belts and eliminating waste, just remember where those “savings” are going. Straight into the pockets of the world’s richest man. Efficiency never looked so profitable.

Overwhelm… Overreach… Overthrown - Michael Moore

Nobody, especially #Trump, knows it yet.

His fate, his downfall, and his doom is, as we speak, being set in stone. And considering the roll he is on, few will believe what I am writing here. Just as well. Best not to believe or repeat what I’m telling you.

Fortunately, Trump is so full of himself and too stupid to see what he is doing to his sweet victory. He will continue to do what he’s doing — shock and awe, slash and burn, rape and pillage, a collective cattle-prod to us all — because he believes he is seriously wounding what he considers to be the “enemy from within.” You and me.

Even though he is digging the graves of perhaps hundreds of thousands of Americans as Gravedigger-in-Chief (with his Mad Enabler, the new Secretary of “Health,” who has guaranteed there will be no vaccines available for the massive and deadly bird flu that may be on its way — over 150 million chickens in the US have already been euthanized). He will, in his own fevered mind, not be interrupted. He will be cheered on by his sociopathic handlers and his sad and frightened #MAGA Nation followers who know deep in their bones that they have so little time left before the Orange Man’s reign comes to a screeching end. Trump does not even understand how he is creating his own ultimate doom.

https://www.michaelmoore.com/p/overwhelm-overreach-overthrown

#DemocracyNOW