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
@taylorlorenz classic cover language. Like the person you just met who likes to say, 'I'm not political' as if that is some kind of galaxy brained approach no one has ever though of before.
as an aside today I learned that when I use my EU VPN all the threads servers simply render a blank page.
@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?
@Pandora @berkes @zbyte64 This is the answer right here. It's not a problem if any specific instance sensors any specific thing. Because as the concept of an instance you can just choose to ignore and move to something better. But threads is not presented as simply an instance of the federverse. And presents itself as an alternative to Twitter, a complete and whole experience by itself.
The fact that federation is only just happening kind of speaks to how much of a side thought it really is.
@wolfkin @Pandora @zbyte64 > The fact that federation is only just happening kind of speaks to how much of a side thought it really is.
No. That's provably false. Not only did the engineers at Threads outline this very well, Eugen and some other major players in the fediverse *urged* them to do it this way.
It's not an afterthought. It's "do it well, or else we'll ruin federation. For us, but potentially for the existing fediverse". Tread carefully. Measure twice, cut once.
#Meta is *not* "on the #Fediverse"
Nor is it "one instance on the Fediverse"
You have been misinformed
You may be thinking that because #Zuckerberg and #Gargron have enacted some sort of a private detente and that because nine Threads profiles are visible on Mastodon as read-only clones, that Threads is "Federated"
Nothing of the sort is true
cc @zbyte64
@textualdeviance certainly.
But why is this a problem when one instance on the fediverse does this?
@berkes
It's not a little instance saying "no politics please, fun only here". It's a multi-millions users social network. And it's not even "this is forbidden by the rules you signed", it's "continue talking, we'll just lower the volume of your mic".
Even if you're not a part of Threads, this is a problem. Why ? For the same reason having Twitter bought by a racist queerphobe anti-semitism libertarian asshole whom love to share Nazi propaganda to millions of people is a problem.
When you stream opinions to so many people, especially on politics, you have a responsibility about how it is made.
@themeowcate @textualdeviance must we patrol the fediverse to keep it friendly? Must we keep multi-million-users instances away from the fediverse? And who must do that? And how do we control the people who patrol?
I'm not countering your arguments, they ring true, but incite so many more questions. Many of which are hypothetical. Some of which are relevant today, imo.
I just don't think of Thread as an instance on the Fediverse until they are communicating with the fedivers (last I heard they don't ?) 🤷♀️ A lot of thread users also don't know about the fedivers so the "choixe of your instance" isn't really respected.
Those are great questions, but we also must not look at big instances the same way. The biggest mastodon instance is (...
...) not the same as Thread which has the backing of META, and need ads (so algorithms and shadow messages ). One is done based on an ideology, the other is made only to make money 🤷♀️
Also, if may be an European stance, but having general rules is necessary, even against "freedom of speak".
@ehproque @taylorlorenz I'm happy that I can discriminate against Nazi scum. And that I can tell them to shut up about it.
Or, more accurate, that I'm part of a system where I can cut them out of my timeline.
Is that an "issue"?
Meta says LGBTQ, trans, medical, and other issues are political and will be hidden on Threads. #threads #trans #LGBTQ
That's refreshing. Complete opposite at Twitter.
I've removed all my interests there on my 'secret' account that I use to follow a few people, and on a regular basis, politics and propaganda appears in my feed. I've had to remove politics as an interest over and over again. Twice in the past week! Something is very wrong there.
wowee. just another reason to never use threads.
my whole existence has been politicized. Guess I wouldn't be allowed to trend there based on my posts about disability access, being queer AF, etc.
@taylorlorenz While this is a terrible policy, I do hope it will stop the horrible transphobic and homophobic posts that Instagram was showing me as a poorly conceived way of "enticing" me to use Threads. Since I am not a Threads users there was no way to report that crap, let alone stop it from showing up in my Instagram feed.
The rest of the policy is garbage.
That will make their ad(versarial) game a lot more easy to sell.
@taylorlorenz even your private thoughts are politics as they have an effect on how you view and interact with the world.
People who think they can be an individual that is apart from politics is such telling red flag.
@taylorlorenz This might drive me to use Mastodon more and Threads less. I'll admit it; I like Threads. It is the closest thing to "before Musk Twitter" I've found.
If I want to scroll inane fluff videos, I have IG and TikTok for that.
This is not good for the journalists who are trying to get a following on Threads. Granted, that might also be a good thing in some cases, considering the quality of the journalists' reporting varies.
Okay, I get it, bad, bad.
But I don't use/don't ever plan to use Meta-anything, so the only way this affects me is when when people who do trek over here to tell me. And I don't care.
If you have a beef about Threads or Bluesky are you coming to Mastodon to post about that because you can get heard here, and not there?
Begs the question why you go there at all.
@taylorlorenz I guess they just want us to interact with Meta Approved Brand Content (tm)
Kinda blows over there ngl
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