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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by geosoco@kbin.social to c/technology@lemmy.world

Users on TikTok searching for “WGA” are met with a screen claiming that the phrase “may be associated with behavior or content that violates our guidelines.” No videos return. Users are also unable to search for the “WGA” hashtag.

TikTok has also blocked the search term “WGA strike.”

Additionally, it appears that TikTok is blocking results from any simple search that includes “WGA” in the search term. Including “WGA” in addition to another word — like “WGA support” or “WGA strong” — blocks results.

Update (9/11/23): A TikTok spokesperson told Media Matters that “WGA has been inadvertently blocked as part of the platforms’ protections against QAnon conspiracy theories.” (WWG1WGA is a common QAnon phrase.) The spokesperson added that searches for “Writers Guild of America” and “Writers Guild of America Strike” were not impacted. Searches for “WGA” and related terms now appear to function normally.

(Thanks mike591, SCB, crowsby, and others for putting in the comments)

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[-] cmdrmoto@artemis.camp 161 points 1 year ago

Yet another demonstration of the dangers of allowing a communication channel to be controlled by an entity whose motives aren’t aligned with what the users of that channel actually want / need.

Fediverse is the best collective action I can think of against this kind of censorship.

[-] JasSmith@kbin.social 34 points 1 year ago

It’s been wild over the last few years to see authoritarians cheering on corporate social media censorship, as though it will never be turned on them.

Fuck censorship.

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[-] deweydecibel@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Fediverse is the best collective action I can think of against this kind of censorship.

The ideal if the Fediverse, yes. The reality of it, with Lemmy in particular, is that we have admins with the power to censor or curate as they wish, and while they may not be able to censor the entire fediverse, if they control a large chunk of it, it still has an effect on what users can see.

[-] JasSmith@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

It’s not perfect, but I’m beginning to think it’s the best we will get. It’s probably the best we deserve. So many instances immediately turned into r/Politics. Proving that it wasn’t Reddit which was infested with brain rot. It’s the users.

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[-] crowsby@lemmy.world 137 points 1 year ago

Update (9/11/23): A TikTok spokesperson told Media Matters that “WGA has been inadvertently blocked as part of the platforms' protections against QAnon conspiracy theories.” Searches for “WGA” and related terms now appear to function normally.

[-] NevermindNoMind@lemmy.world 74 points 1 year ago

For those fortunate enough to be out of the loop, one of the qanon catch phrases is "Where we go one we go all" which is some bastardized version of the three musketeers "all for one, one for all." It's often abbreviated as WWGOWGA, which you'll see on bumper stickers to helpfully let you know the driver has completely lost touch of reality so you should give them plenty of space. I've never seen it shortened to WGA, but that is plausible.

[-] SCB@lemmy.world 36 points 1 year ago

You left out the best part, which is like 90% of QAnon shit, they stole it from a movie. This is from the movie "White Squall."

QAnon people are fucking crazy man. How does anyone fall for this shit?

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Because we have a cultic milieu and it’s an extremely syncretic conspiracy theory. Never quite got past the satanic panic? Q is fighting the Satanists who made rent too damn high. Think aliens control the government? They’re working with the Satanists but they’re on the beat of ensuring your kids disagree with you after going to college. Aware that the rich are the enemy? Trump is secretly at war with the elites. Just a massive fucking bigot? Who do you think the elites are? No seriously you can copy and paste the group you hate in there, it could be anyone that isn’t a majority, they could be redheads for all Q cares.

Qanon has absorbed everything from the new world order (alien edition, but also the other ones too) to flat earth to satanic panic to NESARA to the fucking protocols of the elders of Zion and cultural Bolshevism (though they call it cultural Marxism but still blame Jews). These are all things that used to get you laughed out of a room if not beaten up but now there’s an audience who will “yes and” the most deluded bullshit you can imagine.

[-] SCB@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah this is a great point. I'd seen all the data points there but didn't really put together that's it's become this sort of meta-conspiracy that is almost infinitely malleable.

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

If it makes you feel any worse it’s not the first conspiracy theory to do that. Cultural Bolshevism fulfilled a similar role in the 1930s. It incorporated fears of Jews, Jesuits, Freemasons, homosexuals, communists… and yeah it went exactly how 1930s Europe went.

It’s important to remember, who and what only matters a bit. They aren’t attached to the fact that it’s aliens, they’re attached to the fact that it’s scary and unknown others who don’t think like them and they have to be responsible for everything getting worse. It’s why antisemitism is skyrocketing at the moment. Who that other is is absolutely irrelevant. Hate can be channeled where it needs gone.

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[-] p03locke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago

A lack of critical thinking skills.

[-] TwoGems@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I dunno they need to be thrown in wards or something. It's like many of our parents and entire families infected by the Qanon.

[-] SCB@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

What's weird is even smart people buy into it. My last boss is an amazing, caring, brilliant woman. She's a senior leader at a Fortune 100 company!

She got into Q via New Age hippie shit, which she got into after a bad divorce and "rediscovering" herself. Now she believes in vampires. It's mind boggling.

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[-] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

They probably used some bad RegEx like ^.*WGA$ because the QAnon people swap the “O” out for a “1” sometimes and the dev tasked with blocking QAnon shit was like, “Fuck it. I’m blocking it all.”

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago

Ok yeah accidentally mistaking it for an abbreviation of wwg1wga makes sense actually

[-] lud@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

wwg1wga

Huh, what a terrible initialism.

[-] comedy@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago

Well that's good

[-] MoogleMaestro@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

This is good to know and I'm glad to hear.

As an aside, do we have a system for OP to pin this comment to the top? This context is pretty important.

[-] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago
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[-] WaxedWookie@lemmy.world 83 points 1 year ago

Reminder: China isn't communist - it somehow cares about worker enfranchisement even less than the US.

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[-] fubo@lemmy.world 47 points 1 year ago

My guess is that the studios and/or right-wing trolls reported WGA posts as abuse, and "the algorithm" did the rest.

[-] meldroc@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

Yep. Another problem with allowing content to be spoon-fed to us by The Algorithm.

[-] Nurgle@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah my algo plays a fair amount of WGA content.

[-] I_Miss_Daniel@kbin.social 27 points 1 year ago

Hmm. How will I hack my Windows XP to activate it if I can't search for Windows Genuine Advantage?

[-] burrito@sh.itjust.works 11 points 1 year ago

I miss the good ' ol FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8 days.

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[-] Anonymousllama@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Looks like it was an inadvertent block according to the update on that article. At least there's a reason for what's happened

[-] doctorcrimson@lemmy.today 5 points 1 year ago

Why would people even use TikTok? I don't understand the idiocy.

[-] boredtortoise@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

China doesn't want people to know about the strength of unity

[-] thericcer@reddthat.com 5 points 1 year ago

Not the World Canadian Bureau!

[-] sadreality@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

These guys can't even commie right...

Jfc...

Does anyone even care about the plight of labour anymore? Politically wise?

[-] meldroc@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I was thinking the same thing!

Strikebreaking for the Glorious Worker's Revolution! That's how it's supposed to work, right?

[-] TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

China? The source of most products keeping our capitalist world going? What about it was supposed to be communist again?

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this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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