TikTok is blocking searches for WGA amid the ongoing writers strike

Submitted ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨geosoco@kbin.social⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/tiktok-blocking-searches-wga-amid-ongoing-writers-strike

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.

source

Comments

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cmdrmoto@artemis.camp ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.

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- JasSmith@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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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  - Loid@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Why would it turn against them? It aligns perfectly with their ideology.
    
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- deweydecibel@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.
  
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  - JasSmith@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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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- PP_BOY_@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The CCP has a more active presence on Lemmy than TikTok
  
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  - Syrc@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The CCP controls the entirety of TikTok. Here you might have some instances controlled by tankies and a higher percentage of tankie users, but the vast majority of instances are managed by “normal” people.
    
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crowsby@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.

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- NevermindNoMind@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.
  
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  - SCB@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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?
    
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  - ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.”
    
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- captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Ok yeah accidentally mistaking it for an abbreviation of wwg1wga makes sense actually
  
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  - lud@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    wwg1wga
    
    Huh, what a terrible initialism.
    
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- comedy@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Well that's good
  
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- MoogleMaestro@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.
  
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- Sinthesis@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  BULLSHIT. China doesn’t want their citizens witnessing workforce strikes; especially ones where the celebrities striking are on Chinese TVs and movie screens.
  
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  - SaltySalamander@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Do you legitimately think people in China see the same Tiktok that we do?
    
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  - Marsupial@quokk.au ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Chinese people aren’t on TikTok.
    
    They’re on Douyin and sand boxed away from any of that Western democracy and freedom concepts.
    
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- Syrc@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  The spokesperson added that searches for “Writers Guild of America” and “Writers Guild of America Strike” were not impacted.
  
  Ok, if that’s true I can believe that.
  
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WaxedWookie@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Reminder: China isn’t communist - it somehow cares about worker enfranchisement even less than the US.

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- cynetri@midwest.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  TikTok is a product from a private company called ByteDance.
  
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  - WaxedWookie@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’m well aware - they approached me with a lucrative job offer years ago, which I declined because I knew who they were.
    
    Are you so naiive as to imagine that a major social media platform headquartered in Beijing is not censoring content at the direction of the CCP when there’s multiple, credible sources pointing to collusion between them?
    
    TikTok executive refuses Jake Tapper’s multiple requests to acknowledge China’s treatment of Uyghurs
    
    TikTok’s owner is helping China’s campaign of repression in Xinjiang, report finds
    
    Xinjiang’s TikTok wipes away evidence of Uyghur persecution
    
    Exclusive: ByteDance censored anti-China content in Indonesia until mid-2020
    
    Revealed: how TikTok censors videos that do not please Beijing
    
    Here’s the TikTok CEO addressing Congress as it relates to their management of US data.
    
    I wonder if you’ll:
    
    Engage the point (to fight a losing battle),
    
    Pivot to whataboutism and American diabolism that fails to engage the point, or
    
    Do the smartest thing under the circumstances (assuming you’re incapable of learning) and quietly skulk away.
    
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  - Yeldarb12@toast.ooo ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Companies in China have to fully comply with anything the government wants. It may be a private company but that doesn’t mean they can refuse the government like US companies can.
    
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- JasSmith@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Reminder: America isn’t a capitalist country because there are antitrust laws.
  
  /s
  
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fubo@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My guess is that the studios and/or right-wing trolls reported WGA posts as abuse, and “the algorithm” did the rest.

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- meldroc@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yep. Another problem with allowing content to be spoon-fed to us by The Algorithm.
  
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- Nurgle@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah my algo plays a fair amount of WGA content.
  
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I_Miss_Daniel@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Hmm. How will I hack my Windows XP to activate it if I can't search for Windows Genuine Advantage?

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- burrito@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I miss the good ’ ol FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8 days.
  
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  - heliosef@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I wouldn’t be surprised if that was off the top of your head.
    
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- over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  tinyurl.com/winxphactivator
  
  You’re welcome.
  
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tonytins@pawb.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
WTF? What do they gain or lose from all of this!?

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- cyanarchy@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  My guy do you really not understand the shared desire of corporations to prevent solidarity and organization among workers?
  
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  - tonytins@pawb.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I get that. I just didn’t see how TikTok benefited from all of this directly. Then someone reminded me that they’re from China, and it all made sense now.
    
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- astraeus@programming.dev ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  How often do you think organized protest goes uninterrupted by force in mainland China?
  
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  - tonytins@pawb.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Oh! Right. I keep forgetting they’re in China.
    
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- dartos@reddthat.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Probably money. Given enough money, I’m sure tiktok will ban any search term
  
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Anonymousllama@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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

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sadreality@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
These guys can't even commie right...

Jfc...

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

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- TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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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- meldroc@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I was thinking the same thing!
  
  Strikebreaking for the Glorious Worker’s Revolution! That’s how it’s supposed to work, right?
  
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boredtortoise@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
China doesn’t want people to know about the strength of unity

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doctorcrimson@lemmy.today ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why would people even use TikTok? I don’t understand the idiocy.

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thericcer@reddthat.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Not the World Canadian Bureau!

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K1nsey6@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Comes up fine for me

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- geosoco@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What's with people not reading?
  
  From the article which has also been updated in the blurb.
  
  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.
  
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  - K1nsey6@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Whats up with OP keeping a post up when the title no longer corroborates the story contents?
    
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wokehobbit@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Searches still come up on my wife, mine, and a friends… Stop spreading useless fake news.

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- geosoco@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Um TikTok confirmed that it was happening.
  
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  - wokehobbit@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Good for them. I’m seeing EVIDENCE otherwise in front of my fucking face. But I digress, your sad ass generation doesn’t believe in actual hard proof.
    
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buzz@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Bring back the peripheral show assholes

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- over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  But assholes are common equipment…
  
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