Multiple users on Reddit have brought to light that Instagram doesn't show any search results for pro-democrat and anti-republican hashtags on the platform.

Some Hashtags are:

  • “#berniesanders”
  • “#queer”
  • “#obama”
  • “#voteblue” (#votered remains unaffected)
  • “#dnc” (#rnc remains unaffected)
  • “#fucktrump” (#fuckbiden remains unaffected)
  • “#democrat” (#republican remains unaffected)
  • “#kamala”
  • “#prochoice”
  • “#constitution”
  • “#reproductiverights”
  • “#jan6th”
  • “#insurrection”
  • "#14thamendment "
  • “#republicans” (with an s)
  • “#fascism”
  • “#liberal”
  • “#rightwing”
  • “#georgeconway”
  • “#domesticterrorist”
  • “#jacksmith”
  • “#drumpf”
  • “#johnoliver”
  • Ledivin@lemmy.world
    50·
    11 days ago

    Note that if this really is a mistake, it means they’re feeding interactions with those hastags through a different system than normal. So yes, you’re absolutely being tracked or your algorithm is being modified in some way, there’s literally no other possible reason for it.

    • Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.netEnglish
      15·
      11 days ago

      Or they’re getting ready to block that stuff at the request of our new dictator, and are trying to get ahead of the curve.

      And then they oopsed the implementation.

    • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      36·
      11 days ago

      Spot on. This wasn’t a human made decision, this was some AI going off the reservation. It’s embarrassing for them as it gave us a peak under the hood.

      • Ledivin@lemmy.world
        1·
        6 days ago

        lmao what? There’s little to no chance that this has literally anything to do with AI, except maybe to generate the list of tags

  • AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor
    13·
    11 days ago

    You smell it? Smells like… CENSORSHIP!

    And people still think these assholes are “free speech absolutists”… if you stay on those social nets, you are part of the problem.

  • azolus@slrpnk.netEnglish
    10·
    11 days ago

    Totally unintentional freak accident for sure. Maybe they just tried to make them less visible but overdid it?

    </irony>

  • Nougat@fedia.io
    6·
    11 days ago

    Whoever made the “mistake” which has revealed these shenanigans, I salute you.

  • Skyrmir@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    11 days ago

    Oops, the derate list got confused with the block list…

    To bad there’s no one to do anything about it.

    • cm0002@lemmy.world
      81·
      11 days ago

      Step 1 is making it less technical, less nerdy for the onboarding process. But all the onboarding I’ve seen seems to want to front load that stuff. If anyone wants to “save the mainstream users” it starts there

      Mainstream users will never come here if the sign up flow doesn’t at least look like Bluesky who in turn modeled their onboarding to the big SM sites and is probably a big reason why they have so MANY users compared to the entire Fediverse

    • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      11 days ago

      I’ve been banned on lemmy communities more than any other social media. Feel free to look through my posts, I’m far from being some right-wing ass.