The Day Instagram Blocked Democracy | Hacker News Reader

The Day Instagram Blocked Democracy

docpop.org

127 pointsklez75 comments

Meta and Zuckerberg never believed in democracy. Just the highest bidder.

This algorithmic filtering is almost certainly still in place, they just dialled it back from 100% ban to some lower percentage.

The only way to win against this is to close all your Meta accounts and never look back. It seems hard to do, but once you rip the plaster off it is actually quite a relief.

I keep Messenger though because some people I know from offline life keep using it and won't switch. Same with WhatsApp. These two don't have intrusive algorithms fortunately.

Did anyone successfully move away from instagram?

I have an account and sharing photos to a community there (people who I know irl and random strangers) brings me joy. I also have a pixelfed account but I know no people there and I was unsuccessful in switching.

I’d love to hear what others used or did that worked for them.

Stopped looking at it more than once a week

You can do the same on any blogging platform like any Twitter clone or such, no?

Yes, but it's theory vs practice. I'm interested in stories and impressions from people who are actually doing it.

Are you using twitter or blogging like this? How do you like it?

Did it on Twitter. It has no grid but has communities and lots of photographers. Now though a bit of an exodus and more spam

Thanks for writing, sounds interesting. And yes, Twitter does not look stable at the moment. A blog, ideally a self hosted one, sounds perfect; but I don't know how to approach community interactions there. To clarify, I'd like to post personal photos and interact with viewers; I don't want to make money in any way. I'm curious how this works in 2025, I'd love to hear more if anyone has anything to share.

I’d suggest a WordPress blog with ActivityPub installed, so your posts live on the fediverse too. This allows two way interactions and makes it easy for people to follow you from whichever way they find easiest (ie on Mastodon, or an RSS reader, or even email if you have that set up). The blog post at the top of this link is actually my blog. It’s been fun to see the comments today that were written on Mastodon, but appeared in the comments of my post. That’s what the two way interaction that ActivityPub provides and I’m always happy to see it in action. I made a video about this a few months back if you’d like to learn more https://youtu.be/t4pmWufYRr0?si=pfQQwb6pxUxIM6pq

The two way activitypub integration looks very practical, I didn’t realize this is an option; I’ll read more, thanks!

It's early days for pixelfed, it will take time for people to move, but you can be part of the change

Mastodon is fine for photo sharing too

Are you an active pixelfed user? If yes, how are you enjoying it?

I was a few years ago for a year or longer. Like anything on the fediverse, your account and content are at the mercy of whoever runs the instance. I was on the official pixelfed.social instance and the admin (who’s also the main developer and has been doing a lot on this app) deleted my account without any warning and without any way to recover it. He “thought it was spam” when the content was not spam at all. It was about bringing a community together. There’s no support whatsoever (emails don’t get responses). There wasn’t even a conversation where things could be discussed to see what looked wrong or needed any changes.

If you run your own instance and connect to others, then it can be a good option. I’d say the same for Mastodon too, though I don’t have practical experience with it.

Fairly new as a user so my impresson is of limited value. It seems nice so far. Similar to mastodon, but more focused on photos. Finding people to follow early on is a challenge but so far I sometimes look at the global feed and follow people who post something I like

It’s really easy. You replace Instagrams and all other social media with NOTHING.

Delete all doomscrolling apps. They are not a necessity. You will live your life just fine without them. Just don’t use anything at all.

If there are people you wish to keep in touch with, contact them using a direct method. If you have work you wish to publish, use a normal old website with an RSS feed.

Did the same. Perfect life. Still sort of doomscrolling HN however... ;)

(and it is very good for the phone battery life, one more thing you less take care about after such move)

This. I have been social media free for many years now and want to encourage others to do the same. Engagement algorithms, selling influence to the highest bidder, and misinformation alone ~should~ be enough to sway most, but it's also just a big waste of time.

What I do instead: send pictures to friends/family via various messaging platforms, get news via RSS (self-hosted Miniflux), run pinchflat to download youtube videos from a very select group of channels (no comments section, no suggested videos, sponsorblock to remove the annoying bits), and use a lot of the extra time I was wasting to read, workout, and engage in my various hobbies.

Some other helpful things I do with my Android phone: set to grayscale, uninstalled any time wasters (youtube, news, games), use an app called BuzzKill to limit distracting notifications (some notifications disable during work hours, some apps have a cooldown so they can only notify once every 15 minutes for example), setup notifications every 5 minutes when using an app that could be used for time wasting (browser mainly). These time wasting alerts (done via Tasker) are a nice reminder of time wasting as the amount of time can easily go unnoticed.

PS I also don't feel like I have a boring life. I have many IRL friends, hobbies, and a close-nit family. All these steps have aided in finding fulfillment with what I have.

My goal is not avoiding doomscrolling though (I don’t do that on instagram in the first place).

Other than direct contact I like to also have more casual and indirect interactions. Instagram works well for me here, I’m curious if anyone is doing similar things with any other apps.

But sure, if you feel that instagram or social media is causing you more problems than benefits, absolutely do something different.

I also switched to Nothing(tm). Being slightly out of the loop with friends and current events is jarring at first, but also markedly less stressful. Over time, the jarring part went away. I have to make more of an effort to keep up with friends, but this means I have been having actual conversations with people and making plans to do stuff again, whereas before I felt I had nothing to talk about and already knew what everyone was up to because I was effectively just monitoring them.

I love being unplugged from friends like that. Then when I see them I have something to talk about and catch up on.

I stopped the day Instagram started training their models with user posted content. I only keep it because my wife is sending me interesting things and vice versa.

I'm planning to move my photography to Pixelfed, like you. I don't care about the interaction I get. It'll be just a webpage, a public gallery which I can show people when taking photos comes up.

Actually, I created the account already, but didn't have the time to post the photos actually. Since I have limited storage, I want to handle resizing + optimizing them before posting them to not exhaust my quota too quickly.

The breaking point was for me to not being depending on these apps for my happiness. Taking photos makes me happy, sharing is just putting it out there. People's acknowledgement doesn't change the fact that I have taken these, and printed and framed some of them.

My number one rule for using Instagram is: ignore everything on the app that's not from a real-life friend or acquaintance.

Do not engage with force-fed Reels from strangers. I only watch Reels posted by friends. I also only watch and react to Stories posted by friends. This gives me real human connection with none of the algorithmic crap. My account is private and I do not get any joy when a random stranger likes my photos.

We should have never allowed tech companies to get this big. Nothing good comes out of media being centralised in the hand of the few.

I sincerely hope this attempt of a technocrat oligarchy to be the downfall of social media as we know it, we lived without them, everyone has been on and off at some point even after joining in, even younger generations, so everyone knows we can easily unplug with net positive impact in our lives. And that's all it takes for their power to vanish like smoke in the wind.

Technocracy means "rule by experts". What we have is a plain oligarchy. These people are not experts in the areas they dictate.

Can Democracy be blocked by Instagram ?

As long as they do not run the voting, I think not...

Democracy starts long before voting. Voting is only the final act. Democracy can only function with knowledge. If you don't know what/who/why you're voting it's not a democratic decision anymore.

Seems like an oxymoron.

To be honest, they aren't the ones that started it. I remember sites like reddit removing subs with fans of Donald Trump and Twitter censorships was very prevalent as well. You might disagree that liking Trump is a good choice, I cannot dispute that, but nevertheless people fell over themselves to ban it everywhere.

I don't think this kind of revanchist behavior is sensible, but it also isn't "blocking democracy" either. Or at least someone would need an honest attempt explaining why such removals are unjustified and in a way that addresses shortcomings here for all platforms and political directions.

Government influence on online discourse is a negative, you could argue that voting for an idiot is then the next best compromise.

My (quite uninformed) take is that it was a show of loyalty from Zuckerberg or Meta to the Trump administration. Tech oligarchs have been trying to curry favor after Trump's win. Due to Meta's previous stance on fact-checking, Meta might have been asked to demonstrate its loyalty.

If that's true, this was just a test of a newly released "feature" rather than the "show of loyalty" itself.

Yes, I believe that. Probably showing what they're both capable of doing and willing to do.

Why has this been flagged and removed from the front-page?

Do you really need to ask?

It seems like a standard practice on HN nowadays. I am afraid some mods may be politically charged. See the following thread for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42716926

dang is about as politically neutral as it gets, but it's become very apparent that anything that points to something negative that may loosely relate to Conservatives or the Republican party will get flagged by users.

Sad to see it getting flagged here, especially given the context of my post. I do appreciate that it got shared here and all the comments so far. I put a lot of work into this and I really appreciate that people are sharing it around.

Folks who believe their feelings trump facts

I hope this serves a cautionary tale to the left. If you think it's righteous to block or cancel someone who offends you on your moral or political ground, someday someone in power can do the same to you. That's why I'm all for free speech, even when some speech may offends someone. Well, I got downvoted every time when I say this, so it really shows what the left are.

"it's different when we do it..."

Mark Zuckerberg is a lizard, he made the right call to bow to Trump.

Now Meta will continue to destroy the world's mental health until the situation worsens more.

Trump was a hope that this Meta non-sense would end, but both became allies and forgot about the so many studies that shows how it's a toxic digital product.

It will now take longer for humanity to understand that Meta platforms are worse than cigarettes, but doesn't come with any labelling.

I’ve seen a bit of how these sorts of things work and I’m going to give Meta the benefit of the doubt for the initial block, I’d like to think their leadership isn’t that brazen, and the fact this was fixed suggests an error. One bad piece of content (possibly related to critique of the incoming regime) tripped up an automated filter and took down a keyword at an unfortunate time.

What’s inexcusable is that it took so long to fix it. Taking so long caused the appearance of a strong political statement, and the fact that it took so long at least makes a statement about the importance of an issue like this in the company.

This is a very unlikely scenario, given how many hashtags were blocked and how specific they were.

and the timing...

Zuck lost any benefit of the doubt by publically removing fact checkers and the "the company needs to become more masculine" bs.

And—more than anything—the timing.

Then why did they "fix" it?

They were related hashtags. My guess is a few bad posts on those hashtags that polluted them in some way, such that automated systems decided to classify those hashtags as bad. I'd bet that such a system exists, that's just basic responsibility.

It's entirely believable that this showed up because of a bug, but it also seems likely that the bug was in setting it to full blocking vs some kind of deprioritization.

> "The Day"

So it was fine when they were censoring republicans, but only became "the day of infamy" when blocking the left...

Zero acknowledgement or mention in the article about the history of censorship against the right.

I thought they believed in equity?

You might argue that forms of fact-checking or moderation of controversial content constituted censorship, but you cannot believe that that equates to such explicit silencing of political opponents.

When did they censor the republicans?

Did you forget that Meta chose to shut down the account of a democratically-elected sitting Republican president?

Or is that (and other scandals eg the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story) a distant and obscure memory?

No the same case. Donald Trump's account was banned due to his role in inciting an insurrection but you could still find republican content posted by other users with hashtags. I'd expect the same treatement if a democratic leader tried to incite a violent mob to assault the capitol.

When the Capitol riot happened, Trump was tweeting to demand the protesters act peacefully and within the law.

If Trump was truly an insurrectionist, then that’s a very strange way to incite insurrection.

My "favorite" bit of misinformation about the Capitol riot (out of so, so many) is about Donald Trump Jr. For many, many months prosecutors and the media talked about him as being an unindicted co-conspirator, and how that that Nixonesque adjective would/should surely be adjusted any day now. Then ... it turns out that Jr. repeatedly begged his father (via messages to Mark Meadows) to do whatever he could to stop the rioting.

and only once donald realized his insurrection attempt failed did he listen to his son

we know, it was all detailed in the Jan 6th report - confirming trump's anti-American attempt at a coup. He should be in jail.

You should re-read his tweets from January 6th[0]. He didn’t tweet about peace until hours after things started, (he was gleefully watching it unfold on TV[1], remember), and when he did, it was a half hearted one line sentence to go home.

And three of his tweets were deleted by Twitter, including this gem from late in the day:

“Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!”

This doesn’t read like someone who was remorseful about the actions that happened that day on his watch.

0: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/tweets-january-6-2...

1: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-capitol-probes-season-fi...

To add to your (excellent) points, he only started tweeting about peace once it was obvious the plan (interrupting the certification to use "alternate slates") had failed. Of course he would share a "call for peace" at that point. Everyone with half a mind would. It didn't cost him anything (beyond his ego), and it has allowed his followers to do exactly what GP is doing - leaving out all the incriminating information.

They cited a reason for that didn't they? what was it now?

For the last several years, they censored the Hunter Biden laptop story (before an election, at that!), the claim that COVID was possibly a lab leak, and other "uncouth" topics that turned out to be reasonable after all. And the positions censored were far more likely to be associated with Republicans than they were for Democrats.

Republicans on FaceBook in particular joked about being in FaceBook jail heavily -- observing "shadow bans", outright bans, and other ways they couldn't communicate with their fans and friends.

Indeed, when Twitter was bought out and the censorship was removed, many of these people were amazed at how much interaction they got afterward -- it was night and day. And we now know from the "Twitter Files" that the Government was behind these efforts all along, so it's not just a "company has the right to moderate content" issue, it's a "government is violating the 1st Amendment" issue.

Trump was banned from Facebook and Twitter. They didn't seem to have a problem with this. It's interesting how the brainwashing works: they always find a reason for whatever they do. "Empathy", "sympathy", "compassion" for whatever evil they do. "We are protecting innocent people from the Dangerous Thoughts".

When other groups do it to them, then they cry in the media in which they control.

The solution is simple: we should not censor free speech. IT WILL be turned against you. This should be a principled position, not one that depends on whether you like one party or another party...

> Trump was banned from Facebook and Twitter

For misinformation and inciting violence. Not because of his politics.

The above is a proven factual statement that has been downvoted due to tribal politics.

Very sad to see, and indicative of the poor state of political discourse.

If Democrats can incite violence and post information with impunity, yet Republicans get fact-checked out the wazoo (by Democrats, no less!) ... it's very hard for us to take the claim that this wasn't "because of his politics".

I didn't agree with the Trump ban and a lot of other "content moderation" (which affected the left wing too).

But in the case of Trump he was banned due to the incitement of violence/revolt in the Capitol Hill incident and the attempts to overturn election results.

Look at Clinton and Pelosi’s tweets when Trump won the first term. They also challenged the result and claimed it was a manipulated election.

May 16th 2017 Nancy Pelosi tweeted to her massive following “ Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts.”

Does that mean she was removed from social media for “inciting revolt”? No, of course not.

Trump’s tweets on the day of the Capitol riot were to demand people behave peacefully and respect the rule of law.

Yet he was banned without appeal.

Consider that the differing results in each situation led to different actions taken.

In only one case was there an insurrection supported (as evidenced by pardons) by the tweeter.

First off, it's now clear from the evidence that the "insurrection" was the FBI working hard to entrap all the people they could, after everything was done to limit security on the day of the protest.

Secondly, the riots in Washington DC on Trump's first inauguration are rather pretty, the way the fires of businesses glowed in the night.

I'm really tired of pretending that somehow the Republicans are the "uncivil" ones, while the Democrats are perfectly innocent, and wouldn't harm a fly.

Pelosi didn't question the election results or call for their overturning. It was about the claims about foreign influence, which was later used to build the narrative for impeachment.

Twitter and Facebook locked Trump's account because he committed policy violations while actively inciting an insurrection after having lost the presidential election. Regardless of the actions of private companies, I also believe that inciting violent treason is not covered under the First Amendment.

I'm not sure what similar argument can be made about the #Democrat hashtag, though. As far as I know, nothing actually happened that would warrant any restrictions on the hashtag.

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