SpaceWeatherLive is now on Instagram!

[Marcel de Bont]

We're now on Instagram! More videos, more images and more space weather! Be sure to say hello and give us a follow! Thank you for your support!

https://www.instagram.com/spaceweatherlive/

[Marcel de Bont]

Unfortunately, our Instagram account got suspended a little while ago without any clear guidance as to what we did wrong. We appealed the suspension and got instantly banned instead without another chance to appeal. The team is very disappointed in the way Instagram handled this and wont be returning to the platform in the near future.

[Christopher S.]

19 hours ago, Marcel de Bont said:

without any clear guidance as to what we did wrong

I had just deleted my account yesterday after seeing somebody had tried to log on, sent a code to my email, and gave up. I don't use it anyways. I'm going to share what I know as an American within the misinformation engine, as opposed to outside, since this appears to be part of a greater wave of action against independent data/news outlets:

Independent news outlets are being snuffed left and right on Social Media, as too many conflicting sources is problematic for propaganda. In this instance, a science hub was targeted, and the only benefit I can imagine anyone receiving from this is more power for their govt or mainstream media to spread its narratives about scientific matters, fully committing to misinformation tactics in order to draw a particular type of "voter" into the playing field, and to "usher away" folks like us. It's part of a power play, likely engendered by one(or both) of the US' political parties. I won't draw a debate into this, and just leave it at that.

Twitter's policies were, for the longest time(and likely still are) dictated by how butthurt US politicians were about some other politician's tweets. They are NOT above targeting independent organizations that inform us of fact and substantiated information, which attract free-thinking individuals. This isn't twitter, but you don't need to know what species the shit came from to guess accurately that it smells bad.

 

[hamateur 1953]

Speculation, etc. And if you are unable to moderate your language, please either go elsewhere or quit posting.  This is a worldwide forum if you were not aware.  

[hamateur 1953]

11 hours ago, Christopher S. said:

I had just deleted my account yesterday after seeing somebody had tried to log on, sent a code to my email, and gave up. I don't use it anyways. I'm going to share what I know as an American within the misinformation engine, as opposed to outside, since this appears to be part of a greater wave of action against independent data/news outlets:

Independent news outlets are being snuffed left and right on Social Media, as too many conflicting sources is problematic for propaganda. In this instance, a science hub was targeted, and the only benefit I can imagine anyone receiving from this is more power for their govt or mainstream media to spread its narratives about scientific matters, fully committing to misinformation tactics in order to draw a particular type of "voter" into the playing field, and to "usher away" folks like us. It's part of a power play, likely engendered by one(or both) of the US' political parties. I won't draw a debate into this, and just leave it at that.

Twitter's policies were, for the longest time(and likely still are) dictated by how butthurt US politicians were about some other politician's tweets. They are NOT above targeting independent organizations that inform us of fact and substantiated information, which attract free-thinking individuals. This isn't twitter, but you don't need to know what species the shit came from to guess accurately that it smells bad.

 

 

[Bry]

As much as it seems Instagram has audited & decided to suspend this website based off the recent forum posts for content with bullying or harassment...

I also read there was a systemwide Instagram outage reported globally 3 weeks ago and most recently 3 days ago particularly in India based off down detectors. 

https://www.businesstoday.in/amp/technology/news/story/instagram-down-users-on-web-version-complain-of-outage-384899-2023-06-09

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/05/21/instagram-suffers-worldwide-outage/amp/

Perhaps the new Meta updates made desktop versions unable to log in for many users but can be amended with new login credentials based off reading other users recent experiences.

I don’t use Instagram myself, so I can’t confirm any details about successfully addressing login issues unfortunately.

Probably unrelated, but I also heard about some large scale NATO (Air Defender 23) Air Force exercises going on for the next two weeks in Germany & wondered if the Meta updates (& crashes) were related to fixing vulnerabilities.

The polar filament eruption today on the sun looked pretty crazy too.

However, I do agree with @hamateur 1953 that because Instagram & SWL is used internationally, I also did worry how “figures of speech” or the recent general sentiment of unappreciation for non-western or “non-scientific” contributions from the southern hemisphere or equatorial region might be interpreted as offensive by those unable & able to translate. 

On 6/11/2023 at 7:43 AM, Christopher S. said:

This isn't twitter, but you don't need to know what species the shit came from to guess accurately that it smells bad.

Although this was referring to CEOs of social media platforms, phrases like this kept on the forum could be particularly interpreted as offensive by the international community who might misread this and think people on this forum consider other humans to be another “species” that smells worse than others without adequate context or translations.

  I agree with & appreciate the warning & sentiments about how misinformation has been monetized on larger platforms to push out & silence independent science or news providers...

However, I’m more concerned now the expectation level for “scientific rigor” or nontolerance of those without a western-based science background repeatedly leading to heated debates on this forum might be also be keeping independent news outlets (such as this site) off international social media sites simply due to lack of international science translations and tolerance.

I hope this was more helpful than controversial. 

 

 

[Philalethes]

38 minutes ago, Bry said:

the recent general sentiment of unappreciation for non-western or “non-scientific” contributions from the southern hemisphere or equatorial region

I think it's incredibly disingenuous and intellectually dishonest of you to keep trying to make it about that, as if that has even been remotely the main problem just because the offenders in question lately have been from Spanish-speaking countries and India or surrounding regions respectively. Apparently you look the other way when similar sentiments are expressed towards native English speakers. Also, the fact that you try to put "non-scientific" in quotes after seeing some of the wild nonsense that has been spouted lately seems to indicate that you're trying to put that nonsense on par with proper scientific inquiry and reasonable discussion, as if that's justifiable at all.

I've encountered plenty of Spanish-speakers whose grasp of English isn't great, some of which have been highly tolerable and very agreeable, others of which who have not; and I've encountered plenty of reasonable people from India who have been quite pleasant to converse with, as well as many who are just as detached from reality as the average believer in Earth being flat and having a dome over it. You find reasonable and unreasonable people everywhere. I don't base what I'm saying on where anyone is from, and language barriers can always be overcome, but neither of that helps when the person in question is just not being reasonable, regardless of where they are from. Personally I have many good friends from both India and Spanish-speaking countries, and enjoy overcoming language barriers with them regularly.

45 minutes ago, Bry said:

I’m more concerned now the expectation level for “scientific rigor” or nontolerance of those without a western-based science background

Fact is: no one here that I know of has any problem tolerating people of any kind without a science background at all, or from any place on Earth (or elsewhere in the universe for that matter) and having whatever language background they have. There's no expectation of scientific rigor from people who haven't acquainted themselves with how science and the scientific method works. What many people do have a problem with (myself included), and rightfully so, is when those people spam pseudoscientific nonsense with seemingly zero basis in reality, and won't even bother to explain themselves at all, just steamrolling on with even more nonsense if you try to get any sort of sense out of them. It's not possible to have meaningful dialog that way. One thing would be to be willing to engage in discussion about practices that are generally deemed pseudoscientific, such as astrology, and try to actually provide evidence for it having any impact on space weather, but it's another thing entirely to just make baseless assertions one after the other and piling on some numerological nonsense for good measure without being prepared to engage in any kind of discussion about the validity of the claims being made or even being remotely interested in anything scientific.

If you actually look at the threads in question, they all started out perfectly civil, with multiple people trying to engage with and meet in discussion, unraveling various misconceptions they clearly had about space weather and basic physics in a calm and friendly manner; it's only after many posts of being stonewalled and met with invincible ignorance that people start to get frustrated, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with language barriers in the recent cases of this. When someone isn't even willing to admit to their lack of basic physics knowledge when they claim the Solar system revolves around the galactic center in only a few thousands years when it is pointed out and explained to them, then clearly they're not particularly interested in the facts of reality.

And science is not a methodology that's unique to Western culture at all either. In fact, if you take e.g. India's history dating thousands of years back it's actually incredibly rich in both scientific and metaphysical thought, with some of the earliest astronomical treatises being recorded there (such as the brilliant Surya Siddhanta, which accurately identified a number of facts about the workings of the Solar system to good precision for the times), and with countless recorded epistemological disputes about how to best ascertain knowledge; and now in recent times India has its own space agency doing great work, such as the Aditya coronagraphy satellite they're about to launch in only a few months, which will hopefully provide good data to avid space weather enthusiasts like ourselves.

1 hour ago, Bry said:

I hope this was more helpful than controversial. 

I don't think what you're doing here is very helpful at all. This post is of course as far out of place in this thread as your post is, so I'll leave it at this personally; I certainly hope there will be less of this type of baseless accusation in the future, and that you will stop trying to always make this out to primarily be a problem of language barriers rather than a problem of certain people being unreasonable.

[Archmonoth]

On 6/11/2023 at 6:43 AM, Christopher S. said:

 I'm going to share what I know as an American within the misinformation engine, as opposed to outside, since this appears to be part of a greater wave of action against independent data/news outlets:

Instagram is entertainment, not news. 

On 6/11/2023 at 6:43 AM, Christopher S. said:

Independent news outlets are being snuffed left and right on Social Media, as too many conflicting sources is problematic for propaganda. In this instance, a science hub was targeted, and the only benefit I can imagine anyone receiving from this is more power for their govt or mainstream media to spread its narratives about scientific matters, fully committing to misinformation tactics in order to draw a particular type of "voter" into the playing field, and to "usher away" folks like us. It's part of a power play, likely engendered by one(or both) of the US' political parties. I won't draw a debate into this, and just leave it at that.

A science hub was targeted? There are literally thousands of people a day with Instagram issues, account locks, and absurd process issues. I know its not a debate, but its a narrow vision of the absurdity of social media, especially Instagram. If anything, social media wants your involvement, your interest, your obsession, and pushing you away is a failure on their part. 

 

There is no way in a million years the "both sides" observation holds up, but speculate all you wish. 

 

On 6/11/2023 at 6:43 AM, Christopher S. said:

Twitter's policies were, for the longest time(and likely still are) dictated by how butthurt US politicians were about some other politician's tweets. They are NOT above targeting independent organizations that inform us of fact and substantiated information, which attract free-thinking individuals. This isn't twitter, but you don't need to know what species the shit came from to guess accurately that it smells bad.

Twitter attracts tabloid sensationalists, crypto advertisers, and dog whistling racists. (due to lack of moderation) The era of using twitter for democratic, free thinking, or social connection is distant history.

 

I get what you are saying, and you have a rational contempt for social media. However, I doubt spaceweatherlive was targeted due to some global clandestine anti-science policy/conspiracy by Meta. 

 

12 hours ago, Bry said:

Probably unrelated, but I also heard about some large scale NATO (Air Defender 23) Air Force exercises going on for the next two weeks in Germany & wondered if the Meta updates (& crashes) were related to fixing vulnerabilities.

What is this tabloid speculation? 

12 hours ago, Bry said:

Although this was referring to CEOs of social media platforms, phrases like this kept on the forum could be particularly interpreted as offensive by the international community who might misread this and think people on this forum consider other humans to be another “species” that smells worse than others without adequate context or translations.

I get what you are saying, and this makes sense. 

12 hours ago, Bry said:

However, I’m more concerned now the expectation level for “scientific rigor” or nontolerance of those without a western-based science background repeatedly leading to heated debates on this forum might be also be keeping independent news outlets (such as this site) off international social media sites simply due to lack of international science translations and tolerance.

 

To offer you another perspective, the effort to include non-scientific ideas can be seen as vague meta-physical perspectives trying to bully the scientific community with their assertions of cosmology.

 

Religious institutions and ideologies have a long history of trying to pressure scientific fact with their perspective. 

 

 

 

Edited June 13, 2023 by Archmonoth

[Christopher S.]

13 hours ago, Bry said:

who might misread this and think people on this forum consider other humans to be another “species”

Uh, sure. Was actually referring to the different social media platforms/the issues they bring to the table as such. I'll stand by what was written, and you can PM me if there is something I can do to make my language less offensive to you.

[Jesterface23]

"Is there anything the community can do to help?" seems to be missing from the conversation.

I see 3 groups users fall into across the forums not as one community. Bring everyone back into one community.
(To clarify, the groups aren't by ranks)

Edited June 14, 2023 by Jesterface23

[Sam Warfel]

I'm afraid speculating on the "why" won't do us any good, and we will never actually know any reasons, nor Meta's policies and processes by which this happened, leaving too large a gap in our knowledge to fill with our speculations.  I'd like to echo this statement: 

On 6/13/2023 at 9:05 PM, Jesterface23 said:

"Is there anything the community can do to help?" seems to be missing from the conversation.

and brainstorm on other ways we could possibly further the site's goal of disseminating non-sensational, factual, and scientific news and content about space weather and geomagnetism on the internet.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Sam Warfel