Zuckerberg's Meta Takes Down No Kings Instagram During Protest Day
meidasnews.com203 points by DeepLogin an hour ago
203 points by DeepLogin an hour ago
I don't know if you remember the inauguration photograph but it is pretty clear that this is one big family now.
To save you some searching:
https://www.gettyimages.nl/detail/nieuwsfoto's/guests-includ...
How weird still that that is the world we live in now. I would have never predict that photograph 1 year before it was taken.
You should read A People's History of the United States!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People%27s_History_of_the_Un...
Well yeah, Donald Trump was threatening to imprison Zuck a year before it was taken
All of those people belong in prison.
They do, but I stopped subscribing to the just world hypothesis a couple of decades ago. There is just too much broken and money has too much power to be reined in by justice.
nah respectfully, to hell with this doomerism. these people and groups have names. their deeds have paper trails. For every single one of them, there's millions of us. It's a matter of sorting out the polluted discourse, remembering we have 99% more in common than otherwise, organizing, electing grassroots politicians who truly represent the people and our interests, and then finally holding them accountable through prosecution.
> For every single one of them, there's millions of us.
Yes, the ruling elite are typically outnumbered by the masses. It matters little: by historical standards, the ruling powers have virtually always leveraged their power to exploit those who don't have power. No reason to assume that streak will end.
I'll take that bet. $1000 that five years from now none of these fat cats are behind bars. I'm good for the money.
Loss of accountability and deregulation leads to oligarchy. If we are lucky, this will take decades to clean up.
My bet is that some sort of auto ban logic kicked in, maybe due to abuse of reporting features. It'd if course be worse if a human moderator took it down or affirmed such a decision but not impossible.
Meta and other big tech usually over-relies on automated enforcement because it's easier on their wallets than hiring enough moderators to keep up in near-real time. And it's hella easy for a group of motivated people to coordinate flagging of content, which the automation often takes at face value.
Clearly having public spaces in private hands like this is tricky, as if we try to require better moderation that ends up to expensive, private interests will probably find a way to just kick anything controversial / political off their platforms.
> Free speech for me but not for thee
Tiktok banned the account promoting a Musk documentary too. Oh how the cookie crumbles!
https://www.theverge.com/tech/1013453/tiktok-bans-alex-gibne...
I wonder if these free-speech absolutists will rail about this? Something tells me probably not.
I've never understood the phrase "free speech absolutist." We either have free speech or we don't, there is no in between.
I personally don't think hate speech should be illegal. If someone feels that way I'd rather know it and act accordingly than them keep it to themselves.
Others may well disagree with my view there and that's totally fine, but they do want limits to what one can say which means they don't want free speech.
You probably shouldn't be able to threaten somebody or direct people to kill somebody, so I guess by your definition, I don't believe in free speech.
Threats are the gray area. I don't view words as violent action, people can say whatever they want. A person acting on it is a different story, including preparations like a person collecting materials for a bomb or something like that.
I could care less if someone wants to say they're going to hurt me. My beef is when they actually try to do it.
In a case against free speech, the “fire!” screamer is Exhibit A. Even those who argue in defense of civil liberties and the right of free speech stipulate that these rights do not include the right to yell “fire!” in a crowded theater. This is the one case where all parties seem to agree that the right to free speech is not as important as other rights. But to override the right of free speech, for any reason, is a dangerous precedent, and never necessary. Certainly it is not necessary in the case of the person who yells “fire!” The rights of theater patrons can be protected without legally prohibiting free speech. For example, theater owners could contract with their customers not to yell “fire!” (unless, of course, there is a fire in the theater). The contract might take the form of an agree- ment, in small print, on the back of a theater ticket or a large message on wall posters placed throughout the theater, prohibit- ing any disturbance of the entertainment or singling out the shouting of the word, “fire!” But however the prohibition appeared, the contract would effectively put an end to the sup- posed conflict between the right of free speech and other rights. For the person who yelled “fire!” would then simply be violating 69 70 Defending the Undefendable “Oh, miss, would you happen to know the Spanish word for ‘Fire’?” a contract and could be dealt with accordingly. The situation would be entirely analogous to that of someone under contract to sing at a concert, but who refuses to sing, and instead lectures on economics. What is involved in both cases is not the right of free speech, but the obligation to honor a contract. Why look at the prohibition in this way? There are several important rea- sons. First, the market would be much more effective in removing threats to the public health and safety—such as the one posed by the “fire!” screamer—than an all-encompassing governmental prohibition. A market contract system would work more effi- ciently because theater entrepreneurs would be in competition with each other with regard to the efficiency with which they prevented outbursts disruptive to the audience. Thus, they would have a great incentive to diminish the number and sever- ity of such outburts. The government, on the other hand, offers no incentive. No one automatically loses money when the gov- ernment fails to maintain order in a theater. A second reason we can expect greater success from the mar- ket than from the government is that the market is, by its very nature, more flexible. The government can only make one all- embracing rule, with at best, one or two exceptions. The market does not have such restrictions. The flexibility and complexity of the market are limited only by the inventiveness of the actors in it. Third, the government system of protection against yelling “fire!”—outright prohibition—violates the rights of perhaps one of the most oppressed minorities: the sadists and the masochists. What of the rights of the sadists who enjoy yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater, and then watching the crowd tear itself to pieces in the resultant mad rush for the exits? What of the masochists who relish the thought of having “fire!” yelled at them while in the confines of a crowded theater with the same mad but “exhilarating” crush at the door? Under the govern- ment system of outright prohibition, these people are denied what may be their most fervent wish—their chance to go out in a blaze of glory. In the flexible market system, however, where there is a demand for a service, a supply will soon arise. Where there is an unfulfilled demand for sado-masochists screaming “fire!” and then watching the frantic crushes, entrepreneurs will rise to the occasion and provide the requisite service. The Person Who Yells “Fire!” in a Crowded Theater 71 Such musings will undoubtedly strike the “straights” on the sado-masochistic question as just so much idle talk. But that is only to be expected. No ruling class ever viewed the plight of their downtrodden with anything but contempt and scorn. Nonaggressing adult sado-masochists have just as much right to their mutually agreeable practices as anyone else. To dismiss the rights of sado-masochists as not being worthy of consideration provides evidence of the fascistic habits of thought to which most “straights” have succumbed. Sado-masochists should be free to indulge in their nonaggressive practices. The public, after all, need not attend any theater which clearly advertises that “unplanned disruptions” will be permitted. Sado-masochists, for their part, would still have to curb their enthusiasm when patronizing “straight” theaters. Finally, unless the prohibition against yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater stems from a private contract, the right of free speech will be in conflict with what is held in very high esteem—namely the rights of people not to have their show interrupted and themselves crushed at the exits. Freedom of speech is at best a weak reed. It is always in dan- ger of being suppressed. Our hold on it is sometimes very tenu- ous indeed. Therefore, anything which tends to weaken it even further must be opposed. There is hardly a scare tactic better designed to destroy freedom of speech than the creation of a false conflict between the right to speak freely and other rights held in vastly higher esteem. Yet this is precisely what the usual interpretation of yelling “fire!” accomplishes. If “exceptions” to the right of free speech are granted, our tenuous hold on the right of free speech is weakened. There are no legitimate excep- tions to the right of free speech. There are no cases in which the right of free speech is in conflict with any other right we hold dear. Therefore, the person who yells “fire!” in a crowded theater can be considered a hero. He forces a consideration of what is involved and what needs to be done to protect a precious right that is endangered.
Kind of a weird comment to make. Are you admitting they were right, or are you supporting the right for platforms to censor?
Or are you trying to elicit emotions?
It's not weird at all, it's pointing out most free speech absolutists just mean speech for themselves and their friends. Musk will be silent about this.
Those aren't free speech advocates, and there is no absolutism with speech - you either have free speech or you don't.
Right winger and free speech absolutist here. I do condemn it. The fact that it was only for 90 minutes does somewhat lessen the blow, though.
What tells you that? Do you have evidence? Or just a vague sense that no one actually has any principles?
My experience is that, for the most part, the people who criticized woke censorship are also critics of the Trump administration and its lawlessness.
Why would pro free speech people be right wing?
Because for the last 10 years anyone who was pro free speech was called a fascist in the US.
Okay? That doesn't say much about what they do today nor if you are against this censorship.
Well when you put it like that, were right wing folks ever really pro free speech?
Mostly no, but the people who ARE pro free speech (e.g. libertarians) have mostly found the right to be slightly more tolerant.
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams was a great read, highly recommend
> According to the organizers, Meta failed to respond to their team for approximately 90 minutes while the account was offline during the peak of their national day of action and livestream.
Is it really that unusual to contact a large tech company and not get a response for (egad!) 90 minutes?
Meta is also influencing Brazil's election: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/meta-employees-said-l... - other social networks as well.
If Instagram is not a platform but instead an arbiter of speech they should be held legally liable what is said on the platform.
I'm literally begging people to start using the Fediverse at this point.
It doesn't have what people want (an audience)
And we replace one tyrant for dozens. It's not much of an improvement.
I don't know much about the Fediverse, but if you can easily move your account or data from one tyrant to another (and it looks like you can) then that is a huge improvement.
What the big social networks provide is the ability to transact money. No distributed non-corporation system can ever provide the money flows that make people use corporate social networks. Or, they can, but the instant they do they're legally attacked and destroyed. So no independent/distributed network can ever really draw those people who make up the majority who are chasing money or following those who chase money. The audience won't exist.
the learning curve to understanding the fediverse is too high for most people. They just want to log in, have everything in one place, and not care how it got there.
No-one cares, peoples family and friends are not on the Fediverse.
My realization that it was cooked was when I was doing my comp sci PhD where everyone in our group fully understood the implications of data and surveillance capitalism but 3 out of 20 agreed to download Signal instead of WhatsApp/Messenger.
You are asking for too much sadly.
I'm fairly certain that page is AI-written - see the paradium link in the footer
(for 90 minutes)
Which reminds me of this month's HN post about Lula's FB account getting taken down https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49864642 , which turned out to only be for a couple hours after some content post got auto-flagged, before being restored by Meta. But the HN thread was a long discussion about it being a conspiracy by the US government to conduct election interference in Brazil.
the article already specified that the group was banned during the early 90 minutes of the march, and organizers were banned from posting for several hours during it as well.
what do you think you're adding by repeating what the article said? you emphasize 90 minutes as if that makes it okay (obviously it does not).
also, the other example you cited of Facebook disproportionately blocking left-wing political causes lasted for several weeks[0], not several hours.
0: https://novaramedia.com/2026/09/28/facebook-blocks-lulas-cam...
> what do you think you're adding by repeating what the article said?
That auto-moderation of social media always has false positives like this? This was always a predictable outcome from aggressively moderating social media with algorithms. Humans only ever get involved after the fact (in this case after 90 minutes).
The only reason this is newsworthy is that the media could spin it as some sort of intentional move by Meta, without evidence, because it happened to vaguely coincide with some event date. Otherwise this happens every single day if you search social media for "my account was suspended".
> That auto-moderation of social media always has false positives like this?
Only it doesn't. We don't see right-wing politicians being blocked on Facebook. No Bolsonaro blocking. Only left-wing political causes. Can you give some examples from the last couple years, of Facebook blocking right-wing candidates or right-wing mainstream political movements, immediate before an election?
> Humans only ever get involved after the fact (in this case after 90 minutes).
Several hours, not 90 minutes, but even then, that doesn't excuse it -- the human intervention should come before blocking of political causes. Moreover, this doesn't seem coincidental, given the above point of how infrequently and selectively it happens.
> The only reason this is newsworthy is
...because people find it newsworthy. Simple as that. Sorry if you personally prefer that it not be reported, personally I'd prefer that it didn't happen.
So just to be clear your theory is Meta let some protest organize on their social media for years, then 90 minutes before one of their many protests start they'd take down a single page on only one of their platforms (Instagram), as a way to stop the protests from happening? Then Mark Zuckerberg told them to restore it within a short timeframe for plausible deniability?
I go where the evidence points. Meta has not provided sufficient evidence to conclude that this was an accident. Given their track record of blocking left-wing political politicians and causes over the last couple years (and their even longer track record of malfeasance and deception), they do not have the benefit of the doubt, especially when they are not transparent about what happened.
The article makes it pretty clear: Left-wing political figures blocked from posting to facebook for several hours (not 90 minutes) right when the event occurred. Can't get much clearer than that. Then enough furor erupted to unblock them, or the event ended and then they were unblocked.
It fits with their track record, e.g. blocking/hampering Brazilian left-wing candidate communications for weeks until a court ordered them to stop. If you have a theory about both these things being an accident (while the corresponding right-wing causes were all conveniently given a pass), we're gonna need more evidence from you to back that theory.
Strong claims need strong evidence. So the choices are between a) Some conjecture that a social media account was briefly taken down as part of a right-wing conspiracy by a major publicly traded US corporation OR b) yet another example in a long history of accounts being auto-flagged by overly-aggressive algorithms and then later being restored by a human moderator without proper transparency.
Strong claims need strong evidence. So the choices are between a) oops, we accidentally blocked ONLY left-wing political candidates and causes right before an election, ever since the US started having a right-wing president with a track record of interfering in elections on behalf of right-wing causes, totally a coincidence, people, or b) yet another example in a long history of facebook blocking left-wing political candidates and causes, right before an election, ever since the US started having a right-wing president with a track record of interfering in elections on behalf of right-wing causes
obviously Facebook does not have the benefit of the doubt, given their long history of malfeasance and deception, so we can go with B until you have evidence otherwise.
again, can you give some examples from the last couple years, of Facebook blocking right-wing candidates or right-wing mainstream political movements, immediate before an election?
Ok, so what is the actual reason it was suspended?
Edit: They hit a rate limit and tripped an automated suspension.
Do people actually expect these companies to be fair and impartial? Seriously, you may as well have a No Kings account on Truth Social while you’re at it.
Instagram is trash. Stop wasting your time.
Look, as much as we hate Meta... doesn't Hanlon's razor apply here - "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"? Could it be that the account triggered some automated system?
Maybe if this was Dickson's party in 2008. A massive political event in 2026 is the hottest midterm to date? You can discount Hanlon's razor. It's not an infinite excuse any more than the book Infinite Jest was either unending or funny.
Marx’ counter-Razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by class interest.
based
The (only) part of this that I find rather ironic (and kind of funny) is that these idiotic companies never seem to learn a thing. Nearly every single time they take something like this down, it just draws even more attention to it (the Streisand effect).
Oh the days of watching Silicon Valley and loving this crazy, but quirky but seemingly good intentioned industry to work in. Maybe this is who they always were, but either way, how many billions do these CEOs need in exchange for the good of society is the question I ask.
> Maybe this is who they always were
Absolutely. But they were super good at getting smart people to pull their carts.
The balls on this Zuck, I tell ya ... grinds my gears.
Countdown til this gets taken down.
The good news is that the protests are working. Number of kings holding steady at zero.
Strange how this keeps happening to Meta:
"Meta employees said Lula's accounts were hindered during Brazil election, Folha reports" (https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/meta-employees-said-l...)
Meta employees acknowledged in internal communications that the Instagram accounts of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were hindered by restrictions during the country's election, newspaper Folha de S.Paulo reported on Friday, citing messages it reviewed.
The messages also acknowledged the platform recommended the profile of challenger Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, as well as his WhatsApp channel, according to the report.
Meta said the technical issues cited in the report were already public and the conversations it referenced related solely to the severity of the issues, not political interference. "Any suggestion that Meta favors one side is false," it added in a statementFrom Indivisible [0]
> Today, amidst a historic day of thousands of rallies to mobilize early voting and fight against Trump’s election sabotage, Meta suspended the primary No Kings Instagram account without warning or reason.
> After intense backlash, Meta made the account visible again 90 minutes into the suspension, giving the appearance that everything was normal. But it blocked the account admin from posting for another three hours -- censoring the NO Kings coalition in the middle of today’s historic day of action.
Mundus Sine Caeasaribus. https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/mark-zucke...
From the wayback machine, I could not get into the linked article:
https://web.archive.org/web/20261018012124/https://meidasnew...
Is it surprising? Zuckerberg kissed the ring, did he not?
product liability means the product is the liability
Frankly I'm not sure why they would bother.
The organizers of No Kings may be good-intentioned, but the rallies themselves seem to be maximally engineered to make people feel like they've done their part resisting without materially affecting anything. Why would anyone in Trump's coalition feel threatened by them at this point?
This is yet another reason people in the US needs to get out and vote. People need to come out in mass to take back their country. But since most people in the US are being deluded, I expect the US will never recover from Trump and the very rich.
And now for a big BS quote from the article, which we all know is false.
>There is no evidence at the moment that the suspension was politically motivated
> This is yet another reason people in the US needs to get out and vote. People need to come out in mass to take back their country.
Like what happened in 2024?
> I expect the US will never recover from Trump and the very rich.
The thing is that they are also dragging many other countries into that misery. Just look at here at Latin America.
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with the next change of administration there needs to be an investigation into every single one of these techbros and a Roosevelt treatment of the tech sector and corporate power.
You've got to hand it to Thiel, at least like other people of questionable political persuasion he's already fled to Argentina, gonna get crowded there in the future
And during Biden they took down COVID "conspiracy theorists" who were eventually proven correct.
Do not get mad at companies who just need to survive to the next admin without any more issues.
I'm sorry what⁉ what covid conspiracy theory has been proven correct?
"Proven" is too strong, but some COVID experts now consider the lab leak hypothesis plausible. It used to be that you could get banned from social media (mostly Facebook and pre-Musk twitter) for promoting it.
1. Origin
2. Vax did nothing for the most part
3. Lockdowns were bs1. Origin is still not conclusive. 2. wtf. that is total bullshit, I'm not even going to bother with that. 3. I came from a country that locked down early for a month. We spend the following summer going to the beach and concerts while the rest of the world suffered on the news. Had other nations actually implemented such a policy quickly and properly, covid could have been controlled. But they didn't. They did it piecemeal.
There was about 50 different origin conspiracies.
Vaccine absolutely was proven to work in reducing deaths and building immunity in the community.
Lockdowns absolutely slowed the spread of COVID to allow the hospital systems to rationalise the limited PPE.
1. Covid had a natural origin and spread from a wet market in Wuhan, China
2. Most vaccines were effective and helped reduced the severity of Covid. Vaccines saved lives.
3. Lockdowns were extremely effective in slowing down the spread of the virus in its initial stages, before we had enough life-saving vaccines to protect the most vulnerable from the virus. Lockdowns saved millions of lives.
you’re 6 years older and can’t understand the difference between slow down transmission and no transmission, with the former being the goal and that was successful in places with higher distancing and vaccination rates. can’t understand the difference between less severe symptoms versus none at all, with the former again being the goal
as a betting man, I bet you still don’t realize that every issue with the vaccine was a default issue with catching actual covid
Really? I missed the evidence that the vaccine was mind a controlled experiment linked to 5G funded by Bill Gates that killed everyone who had the vaccine within 6 months.
Come, come, my good sir! COVID conspiracy theorists proven correct? Did 5G phone signals activate tiny robots in the COVID vaccine? No. Does the COVID vaccine work? It's not 100% effective, but mortality data certainly shows that those vaccinated are less likely to die. Time to do some research, update your priors, my friend.
It's weird to me to protest no kings now when 2020-21 is still so fresh in the mind. The circumstances of today pale in comparison.
Heh. Zuck got a call from "The King" and The King told him he better behave. Take down that site ... Zuck knows who holds the DOJ over his head ... and from where the money flows
The internet routes around damage. If these social media companies prove they're favouring the government rather than their customers, hackers or AI will just replace them. Won't be as pretty, perhaps, but it won't block or snoop so much. These companies haven't built up any goodwill to protect them.
> If these social media companies prove they're favouring the government
They favour themselves. And if to best position themselves they must suck up to the government then that's what they'll do. Every time.
> rather than their customers
Who do you think their customers are? They aren't the users. The users are the product, the cattle farmed by social media companies.
The customers are the advertisers. Advertisers don't want filthy protesters tarnishing their shiny brands.
But, they have built up moats via generally unregulated anti-competitive behavior. Also of note, the ISPs are owned by the same class of people, they aren't routing around anything, they are taking our money and cashing checks.
Which would be praise worthy if it was a net neutrality stance, but it's not.