Don’t say ‘vote’: How Instagram hides your political posts
WaPo #tech columnist Geoffrey A. Fowler investigates how #Meta’s #Instagram, #Facebook & #Threads suppress #content related to the #election. Even discussing how to #vote isn’t safe.
…Fowler shows exactly how #democracy dies on Instagram.
#SocialMedia #internet #censorship #politics
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/10/16/instagram-limits-political-content-shadowban-election-posts/
On #Instagram, creator Mrs. Frazzled can get more than a million viewers for her goofy videos “parenting” misbehaving adults. One recent hit showed bartenders how to talk to drunk customers like they’re in kindergarten. But lately, she’s been frazzled by something else: Whenever she posts about the #election, she feels as if her audience disappears.
It’s not just her imagination.
Mrs. Frazzled, whose real name is Arielle Fodor, let Fowler inside her #Instagram account to investigate. He found that whenever she mentioned anything related to politics over the last 6 months, the size of her audience declined about 40% compared w/her nonpolitical posts.
It appears she can’t even say “vote.” When she used the word in a caption across 11 posts, her average audience was 63% smaller. “It is very disempowering,” Fodor says.
@Nonilex a lot of users are tired of that kind of content, though.
Mrs. Frazzled comes across as being disappointed that she can't force her content on people that might not want to see it, might not be interested in it, and even might be specifically trying to get away from that kind of stuff on the platform.
It's not the end of democracy, if anything in a way it's democracy outvoting Mrs. Frazzled in terms of the type of platform they want to participate in.
@jenzi The algorithms are absolutely accountable because if people don't like them people leave the platform, so that's how we hold them accountable.
SO MANY PEOPLE don't want to hear anything else about this election. They don't want to hear about either of these candidates, or about voting, they just want an escape from it all, and the algorithms are serving them by giving them the stuff they want instead of stuff about voting.
So defending stupidity? No not at all! I am solidly supporting these platforms that are giving people the experience that they want instead of subjecting them to nonsense about voting that they don't want to see, because they are just sick of it.
@volkris instead... adios
@volkris None of what you said applies. And "democracy" didn't "outvote" her - the private and unaccountable algorithms demoted her content. You're living in a weird fantasy with this defense of silencing political speech. Pretty clear the platform is banning all forms of political speech, you don't even get a say - what are you going on about other than defending this stupidly?