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Instagram is Telling Some Users That 'Tomorrow is Election Day' (protocol.com) 51

On Election Day, a subset of Instagram users woke up to a message at the top of their Instagram feeds that read, "Tomorrow is Election Day." For some, the message was still there by the early afternoon. Instagram chalked the outdated message up to a caching issue that caused some users to continue seeing Monday's election notification. From a report: "While we turned off the 'Tomorrow is Election Day' notice last night, it was cached for a small group of people if their app hadn't been restarted," Instagram wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, responding to a number of users who had received the message. "It's resolving itself as people restart."
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Instagram is Telling Some Users That 'Tomorrow is Election Day'

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  • Twitter (Score:4, Funny)

    by dpille ( 547949 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @04:46PM (#60681050)
    Twitter did the same thing in 2018. Don't recall any fallout from that.
    • Is it a bad thing if fewer stupid people vote?

      • Is it a bad thing if fewer stupid people vote?

        Uhm, no asshole. It is too bad if too many people work for assholes who will no not let them vote - for REASONS.

        • If you are too stupid to realize that federal elections are on the first tuesday after the first monday, then you are too ignorant to vote. NO excuses. Even if you went to a public school. And if you are new here, you should have studied that for your citizenship exam. Sorry.
          • by quenda ( 644621 )

            Speaking of that, why is it that US elections are still held on a weekday while most people are working???

            I have a feeling it is related to why pennies are still in circulation, and the failure of the switch to metric in the 1970s.
            Why is it so hard to modernise anything in the US? It seems a contradiction to how innovative the country is, but the combination of inventing things first, then refusing to change them, means the US ends up behind other countries that copied from you. e.g. in banking telecommu

      • Is it a bad thing if fewer stupid people vote?

        Yes.

  • yea, sure, it's a mistake.. Convenient for your political proclivities perhaps, but a mistake non the less.

    All the more reason that platforms like this should NOT get involved in electioneering at all. Just don't, don't touch anything having to do with elections at all. Then if a mistake like this get's made your denials of bias won't fall on deaf ears by half the country.

    • All the more reason that platforms like this should NOT get involved in electioneering at all.

      What does "not get involved" mean?

      Are you saying that they should have a hands-off policy and let users post anything they want without interference?

      Or are you saying they should ban any discussion about politics from their platform?

      "Not getting involved" can have opposite meanings.

      • Either way works for me.. But I would say the hands off policy is the easiest to implement.

        • Either way works for me.. But I would say the hands off policy is the easiest to implement.

          Within five minutes you are going to have NeoN*zis and Antifa throwing poop at each other.

          • Either way works for me.. But I would say the hands off policy is the easiest to implement.

            Within five minutes you are going to have NeoN*zis and Antifa throwing poop at each other.

            As long as they don't advocate violence, let 'em wallow in the mud.

            When somebody steps over the line and advocates violence, then THAT's totally a different kettle of fish and stops being political.

    • Ummm. The "interwebs" is about letting humans (and computerized systems) communicate information of a general nature back and forth to each other in a general way. Information somehow related to elections is included in "information".

      Not sure what you're proposing. Shut down the "interwebs" for a month or so around every election in the world?
      • Ummm. The "interwebs" is about letting humans (and computerized systems) communicate information of a general nature back and forth to each other in a general way. Information somehow related to elections is included in "information". Not sure what you're proposing. Shut down the "interwebs" for a month or so around every election in the world?

        Uh, no... I'm suggesting that the "interwebs" take up an "hands off" policy for political content on their platforms ALL the time. Just don't try and wrestle with either pig and mediate the tussle in the mud hole, lest you get covered in mud yourself.

  • Honestly, if someone is so ignorant they don't know November 3rd is election day, they have no business voting in the first place. Voting day is heavily publicized everywhere. You can find out the when and the where on countless reliable outlets all over the Internet. As a last resort, you can call and find out from official government outlets. There is no excuse for not knowing when and where you can vote.

    Consider for a moment the level of apathy required to be misled about when to vote by a social medi

    • If you're relying on social media for your news, you're looking in the wrong place.

      Agreed... But you do know that MUCH of the "news" today is driven by what's trending on Twitter right? Today's news rooms are awash in bots just watching their twitter feeds waiting for something interesting to happen. Think of it as a poor substitute for being out on the street looking for stories.

      • I'm of similar mind. Social media is nothing but sad sauce for the chronically uninformed -- we may be collectively the better for having them vote tomorrow.
        • Slashdot is social media too, you dolt.

          Or is it anti-social media?
          • Or is it anti-social media?

            Clearly. I mean the number of posts making this glorious claim that stupid people shouldn't be able to vote, clearly shows the prosocial nature of /. posters /s. Or is it /. bots? These kind of posts are basically an acknowledgement that large proportions of the American populace are too stupid for their own good but the conclusion that these people should not have their vote counted is a leap. It's like pushing for intelligence tests before casting ballots. Or better yet why don't we just become like China

      • Agreed... But you do know that MUCH of the "news" today is driven by what's trending on Twitter right?

        Oh without a doubt, and much to the detriment of the news cycle.

        That said, "news" should ideally come from a wide variety of sources with varying viewpoints. If you watch CNN, you should also watch Fox News, for example. This is regardless of your political orientation, as every "news" service chooses what to cover based on what their market wants to see/hear. Listen to all sides then make up your own d

        • Or read Slashdot, which is everyone bickering about everything.

          • Or read Slashdot, which is everyone bickering about everything.

            Ah, your sarcasm was not lost on me... He he..

            EVERYTHING on Slashdot (even my posts) should NOT taken seriously.

        • Agreed... But you do know that MUCH of the "news" today is driven by what's trending on Twitter right?

          Oh without a doubt, and much to the detriment of the news cycle.

          That said, "news" should ideally come from a wide variety of sources with varying viewpoints. If you watch CNN, you should also watch Fox News, for example. This is regardless of your political orientation, as every "news" service chooses what to cover based on what their market wants to see/hear. Listen to all sides then make up your own damned mind without being told what to think. I wonder how many people are even capable of doing that anymore.

          I'd go one step further.. Go for the original sources. Every other source, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, NPR and more have their own bias issues, the original sources for most of what they report on are usually easily found, use them as your primary source of information. If you hear a sound bite that's interesting, go listen to the whole event. See a video clip on the evening news that shocks you? Go watch the even end to end and make sure you are being told the truth.

          Yes, this takes time... But as you point out, ne

          • Trouble are the original sources are also biased. Look at the crowd size videos. Camera angles/etc can be just as biased. And try to get into one (where is it again? oh, covid, not allowed in) or another (look at that line, and security checks). Very hard to get non-biased original sources either.
            • Trouble are the original sources are also biased. Look at the crowd size videos. Camera angles/etc can be just as biased. And try to get into one (where is it again? oh, covid, not allowed in) or another (look at that line, and security checks). Very hard to get non-biased original sources either.

              Maybe for some stuff, but for most things, original sources are readily available.

              By the way, crowd sizes don't matter much to anybody except for people who are trying to justify their point by claiming "public support" for their pet position. Maybe they matter to political campaigns and the candidates, but their meaning is fairly limited in the long run.

            • > And try to get into one (where is it again? oh, covid, not allowed in) or another (look at that line, and security checks). Very hard to get non-biased original sources either.

              I'd say half the time it's easy for me to find the original source.
              For example, presidential executive orders are very easy to find and are normally a short read. State bills and laws are normally very short, and are also easy to find. (Add "statute" to your Google search term for laws). Lawsuits are easy if you know where to l

        • If you watch CNN, you should also watch Fox News, for example. This is regardless of your political orientation, as every "news" service chooses what to cover based on what their market wants to see/hear.

          No. They choose which stories make it to the front page and how they slant the articles according to their bias, but you generally can find the same exact news covered on all the major mainstream news platforms. You really don’t start seeing articles being rejected until you’re visiting heavily biased platforms, like Commondreams on the left, and Breitbart on the right.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • by Megane ( 129182 )

            CNN sucks but it does at least attempt to tell the truth.

            It attempts to tell a truth, but not the ones it doesn't like.

            • CNN sucks but it does at least attempt to tell the truth.

              It attempts to tell a truth, but not the ones it doesn't like.

              ^^^ THIS. CNN is notorious for cherry-picking "facts" and taking statements out of context and presenting them in a way that caters to their base. While you can catch them in the occasional lie, they're modus operandi is to simply not report on things that are contrary to their worldview. The end result is much the same as telling outright lies.

          • CNN (in 2016 and still today) is run by the guy who approved Donald Trump to be the lead of the Apprentice and greenlit the series. He likes Trump. And Trump's later success makes him look like more of a starmaker.

  • Instagram users not voting. That's an interesting idea Instagram had. I mean, they probably know more about their users than anybody else, better trust them on this!

  • If Instagram is what you use to tell you when you should do things, especially important things like voting you probably shouldn't vote.
  • Cache invalidation, naming things, time zones and off by one errors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
  • by MikeDataLink ( 536925 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @05:20PM (#60681202) Homepage Journal

    that you don't know it's election day... probably good you're not voting.

  • On some random /.er's sig file (goes something like "vote for biden on 3 Nov, vote for trump on 4 Nov")

  • by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @06:25PM (#60681478) Journal
    If you dont even know the basic things like when and where to vote, its better you dont vote at all.
  • by AmazingRuss ( 555076 ) on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @07:53PM (#60681728)
    ... your vote probably shouldn't count.
  • Not just in elections. I had a co-worker send out a group email saying "let's have a meeting tomorrow" - after normal work hours. So most people read the email the next day, and thought he wanted the meeting the following day, not that day.

    Email / SMS / Word / etc. need some new relative time variable you can insert into messages. So if you type "let's meet in 3 days", it automatically translates that into a date. Or it changes depending on the time delay between composition time and message read time
  • Vote for Biden on Nov 3rd. Vote for Trump on Nov 4th.

"One lawyer can steal more than a hundred men with guns." -- The Godfather

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