Comment by dmix
11 days ago
(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.
A judge in Brasil read the situation differently than you, it appears:
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/south-america/brazil-lula-wins...
and Meta employees have commented also:
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/meta-employees-said-l...
According to Meta their account was deactivated "for just over 1 hour" before being restored https://about.fb.com/br/news/2026/10/a-meta-nao-esta-interfe...
The rest of the complaints are around exact term search/AI results which are notoriously inconsistent if you've ever done SEO/AEO. So not exactly the strongest evidence.
I'm not fan of Meta or their severe lack of transparency in moderation, but this stuff is so political it's basically impossible to debate on facts. Likewise Brazil's courts are notoriously political, notoriously pro-censorship of social media (including fining FB well before Trump for not deleting posts on gov demand), and your first link is a judge appointed by one of Lula's ex staff (Dilma Rousseff).
> Likewise Brazil's courts are notoriously political, notoriously pro-censorship of social media
Only against the right wing's Bolsonaro. The left wing's Lula can do and is doing everything they punished Bolsonaro for back in 2022.
According to the actual court findings, Facebook blocked or hindered Lula's campaign for weeks, not hours. This was already explained to you before you made this post [0]. For further findings of fact, just read what the judges wrote after the investigation (I'm sure you're a nice, smart person, but obviously your opinions don't overrule Brasil's supreme court's findings).
Also, taking the word of the attacker that their crime wasn't that bad, or was an accident, without evidence, is pretty silly behavior, especially when it's facebook, with their long history of malfeasance and deception.
> this stuff is so political it's basically impossible to debate on facts.
It really isn't. Courts deal with the facts in political situations all the time. Here, they looked at the facts and made their decision. You can disagree, but it's not like you're "debating" a court ruling in doing so. The excuses you're tossing out were already tried and ruled dishonest by the courts, all the way up to the supreme court.
Also, your note about Facebook being fined for refusing to block right-wing hate speech and disinformation is actually counting against your claim that the courts are biased and Facebook is not. What happened to the blocks happening across the board irrespective of politics? Right-wing hate speech and disinformation is allowed, but innocuous left-wing mainstream political movements and politicians get blocked right before an election? That illustrates the exact opposite of what you claim. We're gonna need evidence to believe your and Facebook's unconvincing claims of an "accident" here.
0 — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50137079
13 replies →
The complexity of the world is reaching the limits of the average human's cognitive ability, and this deficiency is manifesting as people actively rejecting facts and choosing to believe abstract generalizations. I.E. it "makes sense" that Meta and Trump are working together to overthrow governments, so they take the intellectual shortcut to believe that any similar fact is literally true.
I miss being able to dismiss right wing QAnon posters as just dumb American Facebook boomers.
Conspiracy posting is now sadly fully mainstream in multiple countries, especially (ironically for Meta) among the youth raised on social media, and it's exhausting reading it all them time.
When news is only consumed before any facts are established this is the end result...
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 humans at 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.
4 replies →