Meta silenced a nationwide voting campaign's Instagram account, then blamed its own AI
Meta censored the No Kings Instagram account during a nationwide campaign
On October 17, Meta suspended the No Kings Coalition's Instagram account as nearly 3,000 get-out-the-vote events were underway. Meta first blamed excessive posting, then a day later said a Claude AI tool was reading profiles at four times the normal rate. Organizers stayed locked out for hours even after the page went public again. A cybersecurity founder argues Meta's shifting excuses don't add up and that people, not software, made the call.
Meta is a company whose technology can infer what flavor of ice cream a 7-year-old likes from something her uncle's dog posted on Instagram in 2020, yet apparently can't explain why its own systems censored a political organization at one of the most critical moments in its history.
- aleksandrm
Not the first time, and not the last. They just did it again yesterday to Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon.
https://newrepublic.com/post/217281/meta-suspend-democratic-...
- kaldev
I felt like this whole thing is extremely inorganic. Funded by a WalMart heiress, website went up hours before a massive NYT ad buy, and (in my opinion) what felt like lot of coordinated / paid / botted engagement.
Idk, I don't want the internet to be dictated by followers/engagement that can be easily botted via a SMM panel for pennies.
- Ancalagon
Getting the sense Meta's internal slogan is literally: "Be Evil."
- gnabgib
Discussion (600 points, 11 days ago, 424 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50136881
- digitaltrees
Remember when zuck considered a presidential run when he saw how Facebook could sway voters and elections? And then Elon bought twitter for the same reason? We are fortunate for their awkward detestable personalities, otherwise they would have had a shot.