xeniax ⏚An example of algorithmic resistance
2¢@Xeniax this seems like what people in China have been doing for decades. The Machine does not quit.
Awk & sha@Qbitzerre @Xeniax Yeah, didn’t they start using GitHub repositories for communicating, knowing it would be impossible for the government to ban GitHub?
The Life of Brian@Qbitzerre @Xeniax I love the way people get around things in China. I wish I could share this on RedNote, I mean the original post, but I can't. As my Brit buddies say, "It's brilliant!"
[AF]2050Genius! The ICE be damned...
'|@Xeniax this is brilliant and probably the only way to fight back now.
Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK@pedroleitao @Xeniax this also has a beneficial effect that normie/centrist folk who like music but don't want to get "too political" (or just want to avoid "bad news") and avoid more activist focused places like Fedi are still likely to see and maybe be influenced by the protest videos..
Stuck Here@vfrmedia @pedroleitao @Xeniax
You reminded me that someone could begin to tag some of the posts around other retail/capitalist things such as clothing lines, retail spaces, cleaning products, etc. Just to mix it up.
solo@vfrmedia @pedroleitao @Xeniax counter point: I'm rather leftist, but seeing this 24/7 is fucking exhausting and sometimes I do want to genuinely avoid it for my own mental health.
Vel, Velvet, Velveteen
jack@Xeniax This is genius and I'm calling for an immediate review of all the other censor-evading terms. Instead of "unalive", why not "Boeing"?
Bredroll
Fruity Mercury 
@Xeniax i have called violence "angry moshing" on meta before to get through similar censorship. I hate that we have to do it but I love how people are finding language to do it.
This is the Insta version of the image I was afraid would get taken down for calling for violence btw 🙃
This is the Insta version of the image I was afraid would get taken down for calling for violence btw 🙃
Mike Hartwell@Xeniax I disagree. Social Media and the MSM are focused on whatever new shiny thing that will generate the clicks. 2 weeks ago it was the Epstein files. Then it was Texas gerrymandering, Then it was the DC takeover. Climate Change, education, healthcare, honesty, integrity, ethics are dull and difficult problems that take a long time to resolve and users have short attention spans.
FredricT 😷💉🌻🌈@Xeniax poke @GeoffreyDorne It should interest you 😉
Dantali0n 
@Xeniax I love the LA music festival!
wall-e@Xeniax it's like straight out of a Cory Doctorow novel 😄
Mick 🇨🇦@Xeniax the LA Music Festival posts are spreading (mostly) misinformation about the size and quantity of these protests.
Videos frequently include BLM protests, ai fabrications, etc.
Users that believe they are sidestepping algorithmic suppression of massive, violent demonstrations are engaging with a conspiracy theory.
It might be an attempt at algorithmic resistance, but it is more revealing of our fractured information landscape.
Still cyberpunk af, but in the bad, cautionary way.
Maj - 🇨🇦@mick @Xeniax I hate how much the "it's PRACTICALLY true" bullshit has spread to the left. I don't know if people just think they have to do it to compete with the right's firehose of lies or if it's bad actors.
I have had arguments on many platforms with people knowingly spreading fake info because the video or screenshot evokes the "correct" response and therefore is true "enough"...
It's a losing battle and frustrating as hell.
Aaron@Xeniax Reminds me of a post about gnomes with orange hats I read about the other day!
@hosford42 @Xeniax Love this. Great rabbithole to go down.
Samuelrod@Xeniax explain
@Xeniax tbh the main problem I have with this is that it's taking place on tiktok
sure, I love it for the people who use tiktok, but me personally I refuse to ever touch that platform with a 10 metre pole
Schrottkatze (-> treehouse.systems)@Xeniax when berlin music festival 
Neville Park@Xeniax Original source (August 8, 2025).
tl;dr: likely pre-emptive censorship; be careful not to speculate
in comments, tumblr user afriendofblahaj links this YT video by Etymology Nerd, who says there is actually little evidence TikTok is censoring or silencing content about anti-ICE protests, but that the "festival" tag is an interesting example of people both pre-emptively self-censoring and finding like-minded people using euphemistic code words.
he's quoted similarly in this Axios post about Washington, DC "music festivals", which notes that TikTok does not formally prohibit protest content. (Here's another article with some comments & statements from TikTok users.)
TikTok recently announced they're revamping their Community Guidelines. Mashable's breakdown notes:
The section on Misinformation, nestled in Integrity and Authenticity, is mostly the same but with some language edits. For example, the previous guidelines state that unverified information about emergencies is ineligible for the For You Feed; the new ones say the same about "crises and major civic events."
People are speculating this may be a response to content about current protests, but I doubt TikTok will say anything explicitly.
What I would want to know before boosting this: is there actual evidence certain tags or content are being de-prioritized or silenced, or are people just anticipating it? E. g. can you still find useful information about protests on relevant tags/are people's posts about protests not showing up for followers?
Note: this particular screenshot was posted by "The Shitposting Robot" on Facebook (August 13, 2025). This is a page that uses Facebook's paid subscription option to make money off of screenshotting other people's posts, watermarking them, and posting them without credit, links, dates, or other context. You can decide for yourself whether this is a trustworthy source of information.
Postscript on research methods:
I found the original source by Googling (with udm=14) "thewitchoftheweed"+"la music festival", although searching for the first sentence in quotes also brings up many reblogs (which all have links to the original, because of how Tumblr reblogging works).
I found the articles by Googling "TikTok festival censorship", clicking the News tab, and using the "Tools" menu to sort by date instead of relevancy. (Query.)
I found the original Facebook post of the screenshot by Googling "the shitposting robot", finding the Facebook page, and going through their photos from Aug. 8 (the original post's publication date) onwards.
@nev thanks for making this work and linking the source. Please don't yell at me with capslock ;) I happen to be a mom of two tiny human beings who depend on me, and I do not always have time to dig and do "research". I wish I could, that would improve the quality of the posts. But when I came across this screenshot, I wanted to immediately share it on Fedi, I found this interesting. Being a long term Russian oppositioner I have seen those kinds of practices deployed in my country and I am always interested in mapping those initiatives. This was the intention behind the post.
@Xeniax My apologies for yelling; I'll edit it out of my post.
@nev you did a very important work by finding the original post and bringing in more depth into this thread. I am really surprised it got shared so much, while it's just a repost of someone's ideas. And of course I am highly critical of TikTok myself. But I can't judge people who want to use it to make their cause widely known and seen beyond their bubble...
ᴮᵉⁿ ᴿᵒʸᶜᵉVOTE IN THE PRIMARIESi understand why people use #tikTok:
easy to use, works, the immediacy of video
but it's controlled by a totalitarian govt
and #jeffYass
the largest #GOP donor
who also funded an #israel right wing think tank to help #netanyahu stay in power
when someone posts pro-#palestine content or anti-#ICE content to tik tok:
1. they are feeding what they are fighting
2. they are abrogating their privacy to their enemy
3. they trust their foe to control their content and their feed
Dopes The Frogman
Metalpoet 
Squib/PJ@Xeniax That's so awesome, extremely heartening really
Caleb@Xeniax Thrilled people found a workaround but it just highlights the issues with TikTok
@ccunning totally agree
Aedius Filmania ⚙️🎮🖊️Looks like China to me.
Marc Trius@Xeniax why haven't we seen any of it here?
Colin
Momo@Xeniax
This is -literally- Rage against the Machine!
This is -literally- Rage against the Machine!
@Xeniax q pros jajaja