Pro-Palestinian creators use secret spellings, code words to evade social media algorithms
(www.washingtonpost.com)
from stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to technology@lemmy.world on 21 Oct 2023 04:31
https://kbin.social/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/557390
from stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to technology@lemmy.world on 21 Oct 2023 04:31
https://kbin.social/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/557390
From deploying “terrier” emojis to referring to “P*les+in1ans,” creators are changing up their language to evade Big Tech’s content rules.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
When Rathbone deBuys, 37, posts TikTok videos critiquing Israel in its conflict with Hamas, he turns to common strategies to avoid being detected and deleted by the social media giant.
Since the bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas escalated into war this month, Palestinian-focused creators have increasingly been using “algospeak” — a collection of phrases, special spellings and code words — to prevent their posts from being removed or suppressed by social media companies.
Some users are bleeping or adding sounds to disguise their voice-overs, while others are shifting the spellings of common English and Arabic words like “Palestine,” “genocide” and “Hamas” to evade detection.
An outside audit commissioned by Meta on the recommendation of its independent Oversight Board found that the #AlAqsa hashtag was mistakenly added to a list of terms associated with terrorism by a third-party contractor that does content moderation for the company.
When Instagram user Womena promoted an interview Wednesday with the journalist Mariam Barghouti, who critiqued the way international news outlets covered the Israel-Hamas war, they used the shorthands “Ples+in1ans” and “trr0rist+s” in place of “Palestinians” and “terrorists.”
Just a few days ago, deBuys said TikTok removed the sound from a satirical video he posted in which he impersonated members of the Israel Defense Forces carrying out orders to attack Gaza.
The original article contains 1,262 words, the summary contains 216 words. Saved 83%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
People will communicate. It doesn’t matter how you try to restrict them. They will find a way to communicate. Be it semaphore codes, hand gestures, suggestive winking, people will communicate. I think it’s a damnation of the centralized tech architecture that people are even trying to restrict communication.
Because nobody in the history of ever had ever though of doing that before. 🙄
At least once a week I see an article about somebody’s “hidden language” or “intentionally obfuscated wording” as if that isn’t just what happens to all language with all marginalized people. Usually intentionally. It predates social media by thousands of years. The frickin christian fish shape is supposed to be an obfuscated emoji ffs.
This is nothing new, just different words being coded.
Can’t wait for Hamas to talk about seggs 😳
That’ll probably evolve into s🥚🥚
Back in the mp3 pirating days, we used to spell song artist names backwards, or add numbers/spaces.
Anyone else remember 1337 5|>34|<¿
Whew boy, the boogaloo and the kraken would like a word lads