13 ms·

Meta shuts down global accounts linked to abortion advice and queer content

• fhdhdbdb 10mo ago
  Meta is trying to position themselves to receive a taxpayer AI bailout. Don't let them get away with it.
• spicyusername 10mo ago
  I always wonder, when it's so clear some corporate decision will cause social harm, what the story the perpetrators tell themselves is to avoid feeling guilt or responsibility. Nobody believes themselves to be the bad guy, but many people frequently make decisions that cause harm.
  • xdkyx 10mo ago
    "this will allow me to get more money"
  • kouteiheika 10mo ago
    There's no story. You need to remember - big corporations are not your friend. They're your enemy. They don't care about you. They don't care about doing good. They care about money. They care about control. They care about their stock price. That's it. You might ask - but what about the people who work at those corporations? And that's also pretty simply explained by this classic quote: it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
    • rtp4me 10mo ago
      They are not your enemy either. They are… businesses. Whose purpose is to survive and thrive. Just because you don’t like them or what they do doesn’t make them your enemy. And, lots of very talented and smart people work there every day for their own personal reasons. No need to bash or show hatred to them.
      • Meneth 10mo ago
        "Just because you don’t like them or what they do doesn’t make them your enemy." Yes it does. That is the only thing that makes enemies.
        • rtp4me 10mo ago
          What a sad, sad take. Do you even know what the word “enemy” means? Just because I don’t like my neighbor doesn’t make them my enemy. We are not going to war with each other, we just don’t like each other’s company. Just because I don’t like your comments on HN doesn’t mean I hate you. Good grief. Note: I do like my neighbor!
          • afavour 10mo ago
            But if your neighbour actively and deliberately makes your life worse then they certainly could be your enemy. If I’m queer and Facebook is actively censoring queer content then that’s more significant to me than just being a difference of opinion. The company is actively suppressing my way of life. Maybe the word “enemy” is too much but if so I think describing the idea as “sad” is equally as so. Giving a corporation a pass on behaviour you consider abhorrent simply because it’s a company and not a person seems pretty sad to me.
            • rtp4me 10mo ago
              And by your own logic, how does censoring content actively suppress your way of life? Did someone from Meta go to your place of residence and actively threaten to harm you? Sure, maybe you don’t like the censorship, but how does that make them your enemy? Have you openly declared war on them? If you don’t like their content, simply move along.
              • ToucanLoucan 10mo ago
                > And by your own logic, how does censoring content actively suppress your way of life? Because it erases our existence, which is what a substantial slice of straight society wants. Queer content and spaces are important for queer adults, because it gives us places to comfortably be ourselves without feeling subject to leering or judgement from bigots, and safety in numbers in case someone starts something. It gives us people to be among who we can talk to, form community with, and support one another. And for people just coming up, it's literally lifesaving. Numerous studies have shown that queer-leaning teens and kids are MUCH safer when they have access to safe places to explore who they are, even if they don't "turn out" that way, prevents awful, irreversible things. [1,2,3] Not to mention it can be lifesaving also when their parents are bigots themselves and they need a way out. > Sure, maybe you don’t like the censorship, but how does that make them your enemy? The bridge between "they suppress expressions of who I am" and "they participate in my extermination" has been proven to be quite short and easily traversed for queers many times, and for racial groups, and for religious groups too. [4] By your definition they may not be my enemy today, but they may be in a short period of time. > If you don’t like their content, simply move along. This is actually great advice for people who keep trying to take down queer content. Edit: And this is exactly what figures like Breitbart have been openly trying to do for over a decade. And it isn't just him either, you have the Family Research Council, Fox News hosts, Daily Wire personalities like Matt Walsh, and Libs of TikTok have all made careers out of normalizing queer erasure. For them, "winning the culture war" is not only their stated, in-text goal, it's a means of pushing us out of public life: sometimes just running us out of town, other times things too ugly to say aloud. 1. AFSP – LGBTQ youth face higher suicide risk, but affirming spaces cut that risk significantly. https://afsp.org/preventing-suicide-in-lgbtq-communities/ https://afsp.org/preventing-suicide-in-lgbtq-communities/ 2. Springer (2025) – Queer teens are 5–8× more likely to attempt suicide; supportive spaces reduce risk. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12310-025-09797-4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12310-025-09797-4 3. Trevor Project (2020) – Having even one affirming space lowers suicide attempts by 35%. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/lgbtq-gender-affirming-spaces/ https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/lgbtq-gende... 4. Oxford Research Encyclopedia (2019) – History shows censorship of queer spaces often escalates into violence and erasure. https://oxfordre.com/politics/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-1221?rskey=IniHES&result=2 https://oxfordre.com/politics/politics/view/10.1093/acrefore...
    • ancillary 10mo ago
      > And that's also pretty simply explained by this classic quote: it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. I've come to strongly dislike this quote, because it's so often used on HN to decide that whoever's disagreeing with you is doing it for simple, stupid and greedy reasons, thus absolving you of the duty to think a bit about whether there might be nuance you're missing.
      • psychoslave 10mo ago
        We all have limited cognitive budget. Keep nuance investment were there is relevancy for it makes more sense than spending it on things where it’s not going to bring any value to anyone.
  • s1mplicissimus 10mo ago
    It's called "aligning with company culture" or "not being difficult" among others
  • alistairSH 10mo ago
    Corporations aren’t people, despite what US law sometimes claims. And Meta in particular - just look at the founder/leader. The “CEOs are all sociopaths” trope exists because of people like Zuck.
    • jjcob 10mo ago
      Corporations aren't people, but in the end it's still people that are responsible for this crackdown on liberal content. It's someone at Facebook making these decisions, someone who is a person, we just don't know who the responsible person is.
      • netsharc 10mo ago
        Zuck has shown he's more interested in money/power than the well-being of other humans (the "dumb fucks"), he's cozied up to Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. Donald Trump's co-opted the religious nuts that are anti-abortion and anti-LGBT, and Zuck is more than happy to please him rather than risk prosecution and losing his money or freedom. What a model of cowardice.
  • CyberMacGyver 10mo ago
    After reading ‘Careless People’ it was clear that they don’t have any moral compass. Remember how Mark was caught on hot mic saying ‘I wasn’t sure what number you wanted, Mr. President’ after lying about it on camera[0] [0]https://www.businesstoday.in/world/us/story/i-wasnt-sure-what-number-you-wanted-mr-president-mark-zuckerbergs-600-bn-slip-goes-viral-watch-492909-2025-09-07 https://www.businesstoday.in/world/us/story/i-wasnt-sure-wha...
  • duskdozer 10mo ago
    Your assumption is that they need a story. They just don't feel the guilt or responsibility in the first place.
    • energy123 10mo ago
      The world has serial killers. Some people just neurologically can't feel guilt, and their entire life has been a training ground in how to appear as if they don't have this characteristic.
      • deaux 10mo ago
        Exactly, like the Meta CEO and likely most of his exec circle, as is well known.
    • ProllyInfamous 10mo ago
      [flagged]
      • mikkupikku 10mo ago
        I share your distaste of lawyers, but please consider this: How do you feel about prison doctors who provide medical services to child murderers? Does everybody deserve medical care, as your lawyer friend thinks everybody deserves legal representation? Should the prison doctor feel any guilt for helping such horrible people?
        • ProllyInfamous 10mo ago
          You've specifically mentioned the topic I intentionally avoided discussing, because of the sensitive nature, but: My genuine hope would be the other prisoners would be more successful in avoiding the need for any professional services rendered [read this as a survivor, which I am]. You cannot cure these abusers here on Earth — you have to send them somewhere else.
          • 10mo ago
  • afavour 10mo ago
    It’s all about separation. One person makes a “decision making framework” but doesn’t make any individual decision themselves. Then another person makes the individual decision, but based on the decision making framework, so they feel no personal responsibility for the choice.
    • baq 10mo ago
      This is also, not incidentally, how police and military work, with dire consequences if decision makers are not aligned with non-enforcement non-military citizen ethics.
  • perihelions 10mo ago
    Pretty sure many of Meta's tech workers are furious about these actions, as they were in the previous story where 404media published a number of employee comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651178 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42651178 ("[flagged] Total Chaos at Meta: Employees Protest Zuckerberg's Anti LGBTQ Changes (404media.co)") https://www.404media.co/its-total-chaos-internally-at-meta-right-now-employees-protest-zuckerbergs-anti-lgbtq-changes/ https://www.404media.co/its-total-chaos-internally-at-meta-r... ( https://archive.is/R1c7S https://archive.is/R1c7S )
    • pavel_lishin 10mo ago
      And what did they end up doing about it?
      • gonzo41 10mo ago
        Nothing, the answer is nothing. The harm of Meta continues.
      • seethedeaduu 10mo ago
        The wages are too big. If they had ethics would they work there at all?
        • ericmay 10mo ago
          It’s even easier to delete your WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook accounts. Yet so many are happy to criticize and keep ingesting ads.
          • deaux 10mo ago
            Nope, the things you named aren't easier. Out of the two, it's much easier to not work at Meta than do any of those things.
            • ericmay 10mo ago
  • watwut 10mo ago
    They feel good about it and proud about themselves
  • rsynnott 10mo ago
    I mean, you've got to imagine that Facebook tends to drive people who would be worried about such things away; if you had any sense of responsibility and could get another job, why would you stay? It's not like this is the first problem Facebook has had...
  • greekrich92 10mo ago
    Sociopathy is often comorbid with being an executive
  • drcongo 10mo ago
    You'd need to be a psychopath to work there in the first place, so I doubt any of them have any feelings about this at all.
    • bell-cot 10mo ago
      Denial is not just a river in Egypt. "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" - Upton Sinclair
  • MadcapJake 10mo ago
    The Corporate religion demands unwavering profit orientation. "Ethics" is just barely maintained right above the limits of market research. All for the betterment of man, amirite?
  • ModernMech 10mo ago
    Welcome to the world of antisocial personality disorders. The rationale goes: That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it. It's called the "narcissist's prayer", it's what narcissists and sociopaths tell themselves to absolve themselves of accountability. Whatever the situation, they have an excuse as to how it's not their fault. It's like the stages of grief but for people trying to avoid consequences or guilt for their actions.
  • coldtea 10mo ago
    Aside from prizing their salary more than the guilt, if it was "so clear" it wouldn't be a controversial issue. For some in Meta they could very well think that the opposite caused social harm, either in absolute terms ("abortion is a sin/murder") or in relative terms ("has its uses, but we go too far and make it too easy"). Why the assumption those working in tech would be liberal? Thiel isn't.
  • jfindper 10mo ago
    Positions higher up the corporate ladder are optimized for people who feel little/no guilt or empathy. I forget the exact statistic, but CEOs are disproportionately sociopaths (compared to the whole population). So, no story required because there's no guilt felt.
  • makeitdouble 10mo ago
    To complete sister comments: people who go work for Meta already have their priorities in place or won't have these kind of conundrums. A few elite people are poached, some are acquihired, but most applied to get the job. I believe if you can make it to Meta you can make it to equivalent mega companies, it's a choice.
  • dfxm12 10mo ago
    These people only think in terms of money. Their bank accounts will tell them if it was the right decision or not. Someone like Zuck actively isolates themselves: from buying huge tracts of land to literally isolate themselves, building underground shelters, hiring security to keep riff-raff away, etc. They have no concept of society. They just don't see themselves living in the same world as we do.
  • GuB-42 10mo ago
    You have the point of view that having publicly available queer content and abortion information is a good thing, something I generally agree with. But not everyone think that way, some think that by limiting access to abortion information, they are actually saving (unborn) lives. Some people think that "sex positive" movements are morally questionable and help spread infection. For them, they are the good guys and they think that Meta is finally doing the right thing. These are divisive political subjects and political parties with these ideas get elected for a reason. In a democracy, parties will not promote ideas that no one agree with, they need the votes, so if they are promoting them, it means that for a large part of the population, it is the right thing to do. HN is a bubble with mostly liberal ideas, we have to understand it for what it is. That's in addition to the idea that "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it". But it applies more to activities that are almost universally recognized as bad rather than partisan ideas, things like scamming.
    • duskdozer 10mo ago
      >HN is a bubble with mostly liberal ideas I'm not sure I agree with this, though I suppose it depends on what one defines as "liberal." >In a democracy, parties will not promote ideas that no one agree with, they need the votes, so if they are promoting them, it means that for a large part of the population, it is the right thing to do. I would say instead that it means that for a large part of the voting population, the ideas are not objectionable enough for them to vote differently or abstain. People are already voting in spite of the disconnect between the policies they support and the policies that actually get implemented [0] [0] https://archive.org/details/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc https://archive.org/details/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_th...
• elif 10mo ago
  I think the headline is implying that they were targeted for their ideological positions. However the very first line reveals what the actual reason probably was: "posts showing non-explicit nudity triggering warnings"
  • alistairSH 10mo ago
    One possible reason. Nothing indicates that’s the only or primary reason for an escalation in shadow banning of these accounts.
    • lingrush4 10mo ago
      There is no detail at all about what caused these accounts to get suspended. The Guardian just wants us to blindly trust this leftwing propaganda group when they say it was due to political censorship rather than a consistent application of Facebook policies.
    • uselesswords 10mo ago
      Feels a lot more like the reporter already had a problem with Meta and chose the examples most favorable to their anti-Meta slant to report in the article. Of course on HN we're all just to happy to eat it up as it aligns neatly with our little bubble. Here's some still publically available posts from Sex Talk Arabic who they directly quote in the article complaining about these shadow bans. It makes it a lot harder to trust the reporting here when these examples were so easy to find. [1] https://imginn.com/p/ClT7Cufrk0k/ https://imginn.com/p/ClT7Cufrk0k/ [2] https://imginn.com/p/DCmnH4WPbXa/ https://imginn.com/p/DCmnH4WPbXa/ [3] https://imginn.com/p/C-dBMzXRqnu/ https://imginn.com/p/C-dBMzXRqnu/
  • superkuh 10mo ago
    And if you read further than the very first line... >A message from Meta to the group dated 13 November said its page “does not follow our Community Standards on prescription drugs”, adding: “We know this is disappointing, but we want to keep Facebook safe and welcoming for everyone.” >“The disabled accounts were correctly removed for violating a variety of our policies including our Human Exploitation policy,” it added. ... which is much more in-line with the idea that the actual reason is ideological positions. And if you scroll all the way to the bottom of the article you'll see that the "nudity" that was banned was not nudity at all. So non-nude they actually included the drawing in the Guardian article itself. > The offending post was an artistic depiction of a naked couple, obscured by hearts.
• mesk 10mo ago
  Freedom of speech protection seems to be very important in the US. /s
  • lingrush4 10mo ago
    As the Democrats reminded us regularly back when they had total control of social media, freedom of speech as a legal principle only applies to government actions.
  • general1465 10mo ago
    JD Vance having scathing speech about EU's censorship in 3.. 2.. 1.. Oh wow, that's Meta, our guys. Never mind.
• jas39 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  • _vqpz 10mo ago
    You say "sitting US president" like it wasn't also a person directly encouraging a violent takeover of our government.
    • thrw443 10mo ago
      not big fan of ANY administration, but in this particular case he already defended his case that he did not 'encourage violent takeover'
      • NicuCalcea 10mo ago
        Ah, he said he didn't do it, so it must be true.
      • tanjtanjtanj 10mo ago
        He "defended" his case but not fully and certainly not successfully. The case was thrown out when he reassumed office and never tried. I'm genuinely curious where you heard otherwise.
      • _vqpz 10mo ago
        There is an epidemic on this website of right wingers with victim mentalities who feel like they have to create a throwaway account to voice their "real" opinions. Get back to me on your main account.
    • lingrush4 10mo ago
      [flagged]
  • otikik 10mo ago
    The pussygrabber intimate Epstein friend president
• lta 10mo ago
  The memory of Zuckerberg blabbering about Facebook positive social impact and mission of "Making the world more open and connected" triggers strong cognitive dissonance when reading this article. Same as when remembering the "Don't be evil" moto from Google. I'm wondering if at some level we always knew it would end up like this. What kind of moral shield can we claim from this mess ? I'm afraid it's actually very little
  • d--b 10mo ago
    Well the "dumbfucks" comment date back a while. Zuck's always been an asshole.
  • cluckindan 10mo ago
    As a state tends toward either communism or capitalism, it starts dictating the economy more and more, until it hits the ceiling and becomes a totally dictated war economy, where a fundamentally fascist ideology replaces previous values. At that point, war is inevitable, because a war economy requires active warfare, and war provides ample opportunies for pilfering at multiple levels, both home and abroad. Fascism is not to blame, it is a means to an end for the economy at large. Ultimately, the issue is uneven distribution of wealth and power.
    • kuerbel 10mo ago
      You are downvoted, but correct. Fascism is one possible failure mode of capitalism. It is capitalism stripped of brakes, guardrails, and ethics. A kind of panic-driven hyper-authoritarian capitalism that pretends unity can solve material contradictions.
      • exasperaited 10mo ago
        > Fascism is one possible failure mode of capitalism. It is capitalism stripped of brakes, guardrails, and ethics. This is not a useful definition of fascism, if that is what you mean. Fascism can exist entirely independently of capitalism, and has done. Is it possible for fascism to thrive in a regulation-free capitalist world? Apparently yes. But they are not necessarily coupled. It's a common misperception that fascism necessarily involves a merger of state and corporate power. Rather in a fascist regime, companies have no more choice in whether they further the state's aims and align with its goals than individual citizens have; they just have more devastating impacts. As to whether Meta is aligning with the administration's goals, I don't know whether it is happening, consciously or unconsciously, in this case, but we know for certain there has been deliberate and conscious alignment elsewhere, because Zuckerberg made a big deal out of it.
• Linguist6514 10mo ago
  It's interesting how they're so concerned with censorship now. Weren't they the ones who were all up in arms about censoring everyone with right-wing views? But now that the script has flipped, suddenly it's a problem. It's not like we didn't try to warn them that if they force open the floodgates of censorship, then it can happen to them too. Maybe, just maybe, we should all stop trying to control what other people think and say. Mind your fucking business and leave other people alone. I hope this gets resolved. I don't believe that anyone should be censored, whether they agree with my views and beliefs or not.
  • j3th9n 10mo ago
    This.
  • hiddencost 10mo ago
    Right wing views like taking away rights, eliminating trans people, murdering civilians in fishing boats, extraordinary renditions of brown people without cause, ... ? Fuck you.
    • thrw443 10mo ago
      [flagged]
      • fwip 10mo ago
        It literally can't, unless you like to lie.
    • EverydayBalloon 10mo ago
      [dead]
  • SG- 10mo ago
    reproduction and abortion has nothing to do with fake news tho. you're lumping groups of people into a side to justify your bigoted, selfish and ignorant views.
• xchip 10mo ago
  [flagged]
  • greekrich92 10mo ago
    You are advocating for the closet
    • snapcaster 10mo ago
      I see a difference between hiding your identity and not loudly shouting about it in public. Personally, I quite enjoy recreational drugs and my close friends know that but my coworkers don't and that's fine. Why is sex so much different? am I bad for being "closeted" about my drug use? edit: don't mean to imply being queer and using drugs are the same or anything. Just an example of "thing you personally are okay with but the wider society might judge you for"
  • hiddencost 10mo ago
    Naw
  • dalben 10mo ago
    There is a big double standard where heterosexual posts and queer posts depicting the same things get treated differently.
    • xchip 10mo ago
      Same rules apply to heterosexual, I just happen to not comment on every single post.
  • NicuCalcea 10mo ago
    How is this relevant to anything about this story?
  • otikik 10mo ago
    It does sound like you have some things that you are hiding/supressing/masking yourself. Aren't you tired of "playing a character" in your life? That is a very lonely way of living. I know because I did. Still do, but less so now.
• snarfy 10mo ago
  They block and ghost posts containing the word ICE
• d--b 10mo ago
  Do people really think that those seeking an abortion will find it harder because Meta banned a few accounts. I don't know who's behind this, but they're delusional.
  • NicuCalcea 10mo ago
    > Do people really think that those seeking an abortion will find it harder because Meta banned a few accounts. Yes.
  • bell-cot 10mo ago
    While it may be harder for some, that is not the point. Zuck has seen that the current regime strongly incentives certain sorts of compliance. He is showing them the outcome which they desire.
  • wkat4242 10mo ago
    It's not about that. It's about making the subject taboo so that people will be ashamed to talk about it. If the religious conservatives actually cared about children's lives they'd provide free healthcare, great schooling and opportunities for them. As it stands they only care about them until they're born. Then the amount of care drops sharply especially if they happen to be of the "wrong" colour. It's much more about suppression of women's rights than actual care about children.
  • lopis 10mo ago
    If these pages didn't help people seeking reproductive help, they wouldn't exist.
• andsoitis 10mo ago
  Repro Uncensored, an NGO tracking digital censorship against movements focused on gender, health and justice, said that it had tracked 210 incidents of account removals and severe restrictions affecting these groups this year, compared with 81 last year. Meta denied an escalating trend of censorship. “Every organisation and individual on our platforms is subject to the same set of rules, and any claims of enforcement based on group affiliation or advocacy are baseless,” it said in a statement, adding that its policies on abortion-related content had not changed. Has The Guardian confirmed the facts either way? Or are they just reporting what people say without digging deeper? I think reporting ought to try to get to some level of truth through rigor.
  • makeitdouble 10mo ago
    Wouldn't the same rule applying to everyone be consistent with the censorship, if every org is subject to the same strict censorship on reproductive themes and sexual orientation ? "we're consistent" doesn't mean "we're fair"
    • andsoitis 10mo ago
      Is that in fact the case here? Are all accounts linked to abortion or queer content now gone from Facebook? I don’t believe that’s the case, right?
      • ImPostingOnHN 10mo ago
        The question would be, are any such accounts limited, blocked, or removed? It seems the answer there is "yes". That would mean Facebook's response is either blatantly false, or deceptively using weasel wording.
        • dec0dedab0de 10mo ago
          or they got banned for other reasons
      • Forgeties79 10mo ago
• wkat4242 10mo ago
  Wow. I'm very involved in LGBTQ, sex positive and poly communities and locally and I have to say I hadn't noticed this yet. For IM we mainly use telegram, not WhatsApp, but Instagram is used the most as a social network, by far. "What's your Insta" is a standard line when you meet someone at a party. But everything is small scale and not big enough to be on the global radar. It does mean that people will see more and more bans now when they are reported by haters. I guess it's time for a new common social media network. But which? It'll be hard to get traction for fediverse networks in such a diverse and non technical community. I don't really understand why though. I understand they're against LGBTQ for religious reasons or something but why try to ban it? They can just like... not follow the content they don't like? The algorithm does the rest. And the content on insta is already very mild. No nudity etc.
  • parineum 10mo ago
    I suspect this is a big bag of nothing. Members of any social activists groups seem likely to me to be of the more forceful vocal type and abortion and "queer groups" (that seems crazy broad to me) are two categories that particularly attract people with strong feelings. It's not surprising to me that people in those groups would get banned more than others, especially the queer one because the topic of the group is explicitly sexual and I could see their posts more often crossing the ban line. Now if all members of those groups are getting banned, that's surprising but I doubt there's anything malicious here (unless you consider their general content policy malicious).
    • wkat4242 10mo ago
      We're not 'activists' or so. Often conservatives claim we have a 'queer agenda' or like to turn their kids trans, but we don't care about that. We aren't organised, we just want to be as we are in society. That does include wearing pride flags but not as a means of some kind of mind control, just like an identity. The same way people wear crosses around their neck or fly national flags at their house, because they care about those things. We're not very activistic as we're all in Europe and we don't need to campaign for our rights (yet). On insta we just want to communicate and organise parties together. Behind closed doors where were yes, we often do freaky (yet consensual) things to each other ;) But the photos will not end up on insta as we obey the policy. In fact these events have very strict no-camera rules anyway. It's always been a bit difficult and most people create several 'backup' accounts already that people can follow in advance in case they get banned. Sometimes that's justified according to the policy, usually it's not. The moderation policies have always been a bit erratic with instagram, even worse since they fired all of their moderators last year and moved a lot of it to AI.
• cramcgrab 10mo ago
  I hate political posts on a tech news site, especially ycombinator. These problems will never be solved and only cause agitation on both sides. Closing the ycombinator tab for the day.
  • Fraterkes 10mo ago
    I hate posts complaining about political posts on a tech news site. Those posts will always exist and complaining only causes agitation on both sides.
• nout 10mo ago
  This once again brings up the point that while Meta and other "single company" social networks can easily exclude you, you can't get excluded on Nostr. It's designed in a way that that's not even a thing. Anyone can create account locally on their computer or mobile phone (even completely offline) and that's it. If you save & store your "notes" or "posts", you can always re-broadcast them later to different "relay" servers - and this is what your app can do for you anyway.
• draw_down 10mo ago
  [dead]
• phoehne 10mo ago
  But they won't shut down not scam ads. That was worth 16 billion to them in 2024.
• aa_is_op 10mo ago
  We have Trump blabbering about EU censorship, but here's the US oligarch's social network doing it at his orders. The "bastion of free speech" is exporting its censorship to other countries... If I'm an EU lawmaker, I'd honestly use this to just ban Zuckerberg's entire social media sites and get it over with
  • baggachipz 10mo ago
    I will never understand Europe's obsession with using WhatsApp. They've had a long time to switch off it for a better and less evil product.
    • lopis 10mo ago
      It's not an obsession, it's network effects. I say this as someone whole mostly uses Telegram and Signal and has requested friends to text me on those apps instead of Whatsapp. But most people don't want to have several apps and to have to choose which is the correct one to contact each friend. So the status quo seems to be Whatsapp for people they only have the phone number, and Instagram for the rest.
• lunias 10mo ago
  Protip: don't use Facebook. Meta doesn't control the internet. Post whatever you like. I'm sick of people kowtowing to these platforms; people are increasingly censoring themselves, afraid to even post a picture with a word like "kill", "murder", "suicide", etc. (regardless of context) without obscuring the offending word in some way.
• throwaway613745 10mo ago
  [dead]
• rodwyersoftware 10mo ago
  [flagged]
• quantummagic 10mo ago
  As long as you support social media companies censoring people you don't like, you're in a weaker position arguing against their censorship of people you do like. There should be a strong social objection to all such censorship, but I don't know how we get there from here. All the justifications for censorship during Covid were corrosive, "The 1st amendment only protects you from _government_ censorship, etc." At this point, nobody trusts the other side to "play fair" and reciprocate, which makes standing on principle feel like a loss. If all sides stood up just a little bit for the principle of "I don't agree with that person, but I defend his right to voice himself", we'd all be better off.
  • ImPostingOnHN 10mo ago
    There's a difference between, say, restricting posting of targeted harassing hate speech, or incorrect medical advice that can harm people, versus restricting people from posting about themselves, if it mentions things they can't change (their race, disability, sexual orientation, etc.) Indeed, the two are so different that being in favor of the former doesn't at all weaken the argument against doing the latter. It turns out there's a middle ground between "no content moderation" and "restrict people for discussing some innocent physiological aspect of themselves they can't change", and that middle ground can be totally ok Just like there's a totally-ok middle ground between libertarians who oppose any regulation at all, and authoritarians who want to control literally everything
    • quantummagic 10mo ago
      That's just another way of saying "my opinion is acceptable, and theirs isn't". The thing is, everybody draws that line in a different place. And it's just too easy to cast everything you don't like as "medical harm". It wasn't just people playing doctor who got censored for instance, it was also people just stating what decision they were making for themselves, not advocating anything for anyone else. And on the flipside, it's pretty easy for assholes on the other side to claim that they're "protecting children from medical harm (transgender operations, etc) from the LGBT community. The only way this works, is if we become more accepting of opinions we fundamentally truly disagree with. Anything short of that, and you're always going to run into people who draw the line in a way you find harmful.
• EverydayBalloon 10mo ago
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• skrebbel 10mo ago
  Looking at all this as an outsider, I'm a bit baffled at the responses. Basically, it seems to me that the vast majority of Americans want this. And by "this" I mean that they want organizations to proactively make changes that fit with the policies of whoever is in power, even if there's no actual laws that make them do this. When Democrats ran the place, big tech was going out of their way to out-woke one another, with product announcement videos somehow starting with land acknowledgements and the likes, and now the same companies are going out of their way to out-dumb one another and this is just one of many examples. I mean, America is a place with only two sides, and both sides are very on board with having their particular preferences and ideas enforced informally without any sort of legal framework. I think it would be useful for a lot more of the outrage to be directed at that fact. Just.. be against all of this! This shit where legally you can do whatever the fuck you want but actually in reality you're going to get in serious trouble if you don't toe the party line, and oh by the way the party line switches every 4 years... that's no way to run a business! It's banana republic stuff. I mean I agree that there's a difference in scale, in that censoring access to abortion advice is actively harmful and most things people felt they had to do under Biden (eg land acknowledgements, DEI trainings etc) are just cringe. But come on, don't politicize everything! It will only come to bite you back in the arse, as this episode illustrates beautifully.
  • lopis 10mo ago
    When one side is actively trying to make most people miserable, poor, or dead, while the other side is trying to save people from ruining their lives (e.g. through an unwanted pregnancy), or just be proud of who they are without hurting others, the whole "both sides" argument reaaaly doesn't work. You're comparing the issues of being cringe with committing human rights violations?
• eudamoniac 10mo ago
  - It's not censorship because it's a private company - Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences - Are you saying Facebook should be forced to platform speech it doesn't like? - Xkcd "showing you the door" Did I miss any? Heavy pendulums hurt to be struck by.
• blitz_skull 10mo ago
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• kappaking 10mo ago
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• josefritzishere 10mo ago
  So corporate censorship?
• aoeusnth1 10mo ago
  Is this what he meant by making the company more masculine?
• alex1138 10mo ago
  Mark Zuckerberg is a sociopath, it's been obvious for years But everyone always excuses it. "He was young when he wrote those IMs"