Meta is downranking/hiding political content on Threads. The company says Threads will “not recommend any content/accounts that post about politics.”
Here’s the issue: what counts as “politics” is often any news abt people who have had their whole existence politicized, such as news about Black people, LGBTQ people, disabled ppl, women, etc. Climate scientists, public health experts etc also considered “political” https://www.axios.com/2024/02/09/meta-political-content-moderation-threads
@zbyte64 I get that.
Let me rephrase.
Why is it an issue that one instance on the fediverse silences (or even outright censors) certain topics, people, views or ideas?
Meta does not govern it's supposed instances like Mastodon does.
Meta has for a decade at least, censored ProDemocracy speech before fascist and christofascist speech.
This censorship extends to IG and all of their "instances." -- though I've seen no evidence that there are any more instances than the central one where I am now.
@beccanalia @zbyte64 not sure if I understand you correct, but you seem to see two problems: that Meta does this on all their estate. And that the fediverse isn't really federated?
The first part *is* a problem, if and when FB, IG (and WA) silence marginalized ppl. But to me, the solution is Federation: allow these ppl to move to a safe space where they have a voice and where everyone who wants, can hear these people. Even from within the meta estates. Which threads is?
That's my point. The federated part of Threads seems to be just hype. We don't sign on to separate instances. After signing up, we're placed into a central area.
Supposedly there is a way to create a "thread" (instance), but they don't seem to encourage it.
It's happening across all the different instances, it seems.
@beccanalia @zbyte64 I can follow people from threads here. And from my personal "a thread" (selhosted instance).
I'm not on threads, but saw some first follows the other way. When they (carefully) roll that out, it's just another instance.
For the sake of the argument: is it an issue when one instance silences certain types of content, groups or ideas?
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