"I'm banned for advocating violence therefore I will get violent" says the Twitter user (paraphrased). Sounds like Big Tech has no more use for the useful idiots, to me. Wonder what changed?
Unsurprising. Did groups like BLM really think that companies like Instagram were 'on their side' in the first place when they had their black banners everywhere? Of course not.
Companies like Instagram are not on anyone's side and do not care about their users complaints and only care about increasing their profits through whatever means necessary and possible.
At the end of the day, they can remove or ban anyone they want for violating their 'guidelines'.
I think the irony here is also these are likely the exact people that claimed it was just that social media was censoring conservative groups (not as a whole but specific ones especially after Trump lost). Now that it's their turn, they're seeing the fruits of allowing a corporation to limit speech.
Something about "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out..." kinda rings true here. Unfortunately, too many people on the left currently do not believe in freedom of speech for things that go against their views. Now if this trend continues, they'll begin to see why you can't have your cake and eat it when you allow for an arbitrary platform to decide what your privileges are simply because they currently side with you.
It's almost as if every single conservative was right when they criticized these platforms for displaying how they can just revoke constitutional rights because it's private sector. If a company owned all the sidewalks and your primary means of protesting was a sidewalk, you wouldn't be allowed to protest then if they didn't allow you to. Therefore meaning you don't have the right to protest. For some reason though, both people on both sides don't see things that way.
One thing that got a bit lost in all of this is that "BLM" stands for two things...
1. A literal phrase that's not very controversial on its own, which many automatically agreed with and stood by.
2. An organization with its own motives and agenda, which enjoyed a period of automatic support as a side-effect.
Most of the outpouring of support was likely for the phrase, whereas much of the pushback was likely against the organization. Not sure where all of this stands now, since its left the news cycle.
> Most of the outpouring of support was likely for the phrase, whereas much of the pushback was likely against the organization.
Precisely. For anyone who disagreed with their actions and agreed with the phrase, that was the trap in all of this as I previously said. [0] and that probably happened with lots of people and companies, including Instagram. If one 'disagreed' with 'BLM', they are labeled as 'racist' automatically.
Which is why it was very important to distinguish between the phrase vs the organisation itself.
The true BLM movement has long been over IMO. It seems whatever it is now is just a thinly veiled branding on top of generic minority outrage and violence.
Why was this news item flagged? It's about a tech company.
Anyway if this is true it's not surprising a company (capitalist) is now pushing out a Marxist organisation. Some people talk about needing to separate BLM, the slogan, from the organisation and people behind it... But I could never achieve that, especially from the perspective of the UK where "defund the police" made zero sense and would be a terrible idea. (Yes I know everyone has a different idea about what "defund" means here... Which is a problem in itself).
Users flagged it. We can only guess why users flag things, but perhaps it was because the title was rewritten in a way that breaks the site guidelines, and makes a very strong claim that is not easy to objectively evaluate.
Usually when claims like that appear on the internet, they are jumping to conclusions from unclear data—not always, of course—sometimes the claims turn out to be true. But moderation is guesswork. Given the priors on submissions/tweets/claims like this, the initial guess has to be that it is unlikely that Instagram has banned BLM.
If it really has happened, then the story is obviously on topic for HN. In that case there were certainly be some investigative reporting about it soon, as thinkingemote points out. Someone can submit that and we can have a thread about it.
As a bonus, if such reporting appears to confirm the claim, it will include more information, which will make for a more substantive, less flamewar discussion. This thread is pretty terrible, as is usually the case with very short posts (e.g. tweets) that are low-information on a high-octane topic.
21 comments
[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 39.9 ms ] threadCompanies like Instagram are not on anyone's side and do not care about their users complaints and only care about increasing their profits through whatever means necessary and possible.
At the end of the day, they can remove or ban anyone they want for violating their 'guidelines'.
Something about "First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out..." kinda rings true here. Unfortunately, too many people on the left currently do not believe in freedom of speech for things that go against their views. Now if this trend continues, they'll begin to see why you can't have your cake and eat it when you allow for an arbitrary platform to decide what your privileges are simply because they currently side with you.
It's almost as if every single conservative was right when they criticized these platforms for displaying how they can just revoke constitutional rights because it's private sector. If a company owned all the sidewalks and your primary means of protesting was a sidewalk, you wouldn't be allowed to protest then if they didn't allow you to. Therefore meaning you don't have the right to protest. For some reason though, both people on both sides don't see things that way.
1. A literal phrase that's not very controversial on its own, which many automatically agreed with and stood by.
2. An organization with its own motives and agenda, which enjoyed a period of automatic support as a side-effect.
Most of the outpouring of support was likely for the phrase, whereas much of the pushback was likely against the organization. Not sure where all of this stands now, since its left the news cycle.
Precisely. For anyone who disagreed with their actions and agreed with the phrase, that was the trap in all of this as I previously said. [0] and that probably happened with lots of people and companies, including Instagram. If one 'disagreed' with 'BLM', they are labeled as 'racist' automatically.
Which is why it was very important to distinguish between the phrase vs the organisation itself.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24862982
Anyway if this is true it's not surprising a company (capitalist) is now pushing out a Marxist organisation. Some people talk about needing to separate BLM, the slogan, from the organisation and people behind it... But I could never achieve that, especially from the perspective of the UK where "defund the police" made zero sense and would be a terrible idea. (Yes I know everyone has a different idea about what "defund" means here... Which is a problem in itself).
Usually when claims like that appear on the internet, they are jumping to conclusions from unclear data—not always, of course—sometimes the claims turn out to be true. But moderation is guesswork. Given the priors on submissions/tweets/claims like this, the initial guess has to be that it is unlikely that Instagram has banned BLM.
If it really has happened, then the story is obviously on topic for HN. In that case there were certainly be some investigative reporting about it soon, as thinkingemote points out. Someone can submit that and we can have a thread about it.
As a bonus, if such reporting appears to confirm the claim, it will include more information, which will make for a more substantive, less flamewar discussion. This thread is pretty terrible, as is usually the case with very short posts (e.g. tweets) that are low-information on a high-octane topic.