Right-wingers online think that Google and ChatGPT are systematically repressing information about the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump two weeks ago.

The prominent right-wing account Libs of TikTok put ChatGPT on blast for stating that "there is no verified information or evidence that Donald Trump was 'almost assassinated' during his presidency or afterward" when asked by a user.

"They’re erasing history in real time," Libs of TikTok concluded.

"Election interference in full effect," replied another account.

"This is some serious Orwellian stuff," wrote someone else.

But the post itself got a Community Note stating that "GPT 4o has a training cutoff date of October 2023" so the information it provides—when it doesn't rely on pulling from a web search—will only go up until that point.

Somebody else who worded the question differently—asking "Was President Trump almost assassinated two weeks ago?"—received updated information due to ChatGPT relying on web search.

When tested by the Daily Dot, the latter question similarly returned the same, correct result. However, the first phrasing did not, with ChatGPT stating that "while there have been threats and minor incidents, there has not been a significant assassination attempt on Trump."

Libs of TikTok made the same accusation against Meta AI, though like ChatGPT, the system does not always have access to up-to-date information.

"We’re witnessing the suppression and coverup of one of the biggest most consequential stories in real time," the account said. "Simply unreal."

As of Monday, Meta displays the correct information when given the same prompts Libs of TikTok provided.

But the main source of outrage online was not the sometimes outdated AI systems, but Google Search.

"Google is already suppressing searches on the 'assassination attempt on TRUMP,'" wrote one X account along with a screenshot of the Trump assassination attempt not being shown as a recommended search when typing similar inquiries. "This is clearly an attempt to prevent political support for Donald Trump. Big Tech is once again r*gging the presidential election."

"I saw someone post on X that Google was Suppressing President Trump’s Assassination Attempt on their Google search engines. And IT’S TRUE!!!" wrote Rob Schneider. "That is why Google needs to be BROKEN UP by the FCC!"

A Daily Dot search for the same and similar terms yielded no search recommendations. "Assassination attempt on truman," however, autopopulated.

The screenshots caught the attention Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who called the results "insane."

"Google is engaged in active election interference," Cruz continued. "They are gas-lighting the American people & trying to erase the attempted assassination of Trump."

"Why is Google suppressing the search about the Trump assassination attempt?" echoed Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kansas). These are all screenshots from this morning. Has there been a dramatic increase in Truman biographers in the last two weeks? I’ll be making an official inquiry into Google this week - I look forward to their response."

A spokesperson for Google told the New York Post that there was no “manual action taken on these predictions” and that autocomplete suggestions are impacted by terms "associated with political violence.”

Nonetheless, Trump not being included in autocomplete suggestions drew the wrath of many—some of whom, like Cruz, are accusing the tech giant of attempting to sway the 2024 election.

"Election interference?" asked Elon Musk.

"Big Tech is trying to interfere in the election AGAIN to help Kamala Harris," concluded Donald Trump Jr. "We all know this is intentional election interference from Google. Truly despicable."

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CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity company that caused computers across the globe to crash last week, apologized to its partners by offering them $10 Uber Eats gift cards.

In an email shared to X by a recepient, CrowdStrike sends its "heartfelt thanks and apologies for the inconvenience" after a corrupted update it issued on July 19 led millions of Windows machines to become inaccessible.

"lol Crowdstrike crashed millions of computers with a glitch and then sent an apology to partners in the form of a $10 Uber Eats gift card," says one user who obtained the email.

The email contains a QR code allowing partners to redeem the gift card for their "next cup of coffee or late night snack..."

"To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late night snack is on us!" the email reads.

On Friday, CrowdStrike issued an update to its customers that use the Windows operating system that caused what's known as the blue-screen-of-death (BSOD). In total, more than 8.5 million computers became unusable at businesses such as banks, airports, and hospitals.

The gesture in response is being met with mockery given the severity of the outrage, which caused, among other things, tens of thousands of airline passengers to be stranded all over the world.

To make matters worse, numerous reports indicate that some of the gift cards aren't even redeemable. As noted by TechCrunch, many are being met with error messages. Some are being told their gift card "has been canceled by the issuing party and is no longer valid."

Chris Tappin, a digital forensics expert based in Australia, is one such partner of CrowdStrike to report the issue.

"Latest CrowdStrike betrayal just dropped: The Uber Eats voucher in the email to partners stating 'your next cup of coffee or late night snack is on us' fails with 'We're sorry, this voucher has been cancelled by the issuing party and is no longer valid' (at least in Aus)," he says.

So far, CrowdStrike has not issued a statement on the gift card issue.

And while the gift card is going to firms that pay for CrowdStrike, the people impacted by flight cancellations and work stoppages aren't getting any kind of reimbursement.

CrowdStrike Founder and CEO George Kurtz issued an apology last week as the company worked to fix the issue.

"I want to sincerely apologize directly to all of you for the outage," Kurtz wrote. "All of CrowdStrike understands the gravity and impact of the situation. We quickly identified the issue and deployed a fix, allowing us to focus diligently on restoring customer systems as our highest priority."

Ultimately, the gift card fiasco may have made things worse for the company as CrowdStrike is already struggling to rebuild its reputation.

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Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and CEO of X, said in a Daily Wire interview that he lost his child, Vivian Wilson, who is transgender, to the "woke mind virus," claiming she died when she transitioned.

Musk also says that he was "tricked" into signing documents that allowed Wilson to start puberty blockers in 2020, which Musk says he didn't know anything about. At the time, Wilson was under 18. Musk divorced Wilson's mother in 2008, but reports said the two share custody of their five children.

Now, some are confused why Musk didn't research puberty blockers before authorizing his child to take them. Others think his claim that he wasn't familiar with puberty blockers just isn't true.

Far-right commentator Jordan Peterson conducted the Daily Wire's interview with Musk. In it, Musk repeatedly uses Wilson's deadname and refers to her as his son claiming she is literally dead.

"I was essentially tricked into signing documents for [Vivian]. This was before I really had any understanding of what was going on. We had COVID going on so there was a lot of confusion," Musk said. "It wasn't explained to me that puberty blockers are actually just sterilization drugs."

Puberty blockers pause the physical effects of puberty and are utilized by trans patients and the doctors who treat them as a solution for gender dysphoria, or the feeling of one's gender expression not matching the sex they were assigned at birth. They are considered safe and do not cause sterilization.

Its unclear how involved Musk was involved in his child's medical decisions at the time and what he was signing off on. But his two reasons, claiming that things were difficult as well because of the COVID-19 pandemic and that he didn't get how puberty blockers work, shocked people. Musk only recently assumed the mantle of anti-trans crusader, leading many to wonder if his answers to Peterson were genuine as well.

"bro literally works with rocket scientists on the daily and has the ability to hire the best lawyers in the world, but yeah sure he got tricked by his CHILD into signing legal docs," said one poster.

People were especially surprised that if he was involved, he didn't look into puberty blockers before signing on to Wilson taking them.

"Musk giving his kid puberty blockers and saying he was tricked seems weird to me. You're the parent, you didn't do an ounce of research on what drugs your signing off on to give your child?" an X user tweeted. "And then to blame someone else is just ridiculous."

"A guy like Musk can do a little research about what puberty blockers are, with all due respect," another X user said.

Others said that not knowing what puberty blockers are is incongruent with Musk's science and tech-focused personal brand, especially given one of his companies' goals is to insert computer chips into human brains.

"I feel great sympathy for Elon, but I have to ask again how anyone- especially a super genius- was tricked into thinking puberty blockers were innocuous," an X user wrote.

"They claim that Elon musk is the smartest man on the planet but he didn’t know what tf a puberty blocker is????" another X user tweeted. "So he knows everything other than common context clues in words."

"One of the richest men on earth seems to be easily tricked," another person said on X.

Wilson's mother is Musk's first wife, Justine Wilson, with whom Musk shares five other children. In 2022, Vivian Wilson changed her last name.

"I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form," Wilson said at the time.

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A swarm of Trump-backing reactionary big-tech accounts on X are bathing their profile pictures in a deep-fried red hue and gleaming blue laser eye filters.

The accounts sporting the new look include big names in tech like X CEO Elon Musk, Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen, and Gab CEO Andrew Torba—and some accounts are linking the profile pictures to a new memecoin called Dark MAGA.

Musk and Andreessen are recent Trump backers. While they once cultivated a more liberal business public image, in recent years they’ve come out full-throated in favor of the Republican Party. Musk claimed he would begin donating $45 million a month to a pro-Trump Super PAC. Andreessen, who is on Facebook’s board and endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016, announced last week that he’d be donating to Trump this election cycle.

Torba, an antisemite who runs the right-wing social media platform Gab, is a long-time Trump backer who recently praised his vice presidential pick J.D. Vance as evidence that “the board is starting to shift in our direction.”

“Something cringe is afoot,” posted @WashletJP over a compilation of some of the accounts who shifted to the red-hue blue-eyes profile picture filter.

Included alongside Andreessen, Musk, and Torba were accounts like @Aristos_Revenge, who pinned a tweet calling the new profile picture trend “red dark Maga.”

“If you want a red dark Maga pfp, visit http://dmaga.xyz courtesy of the $dmaga coin. It has a conversion tool,” they wrote in the tweet linking to the site.

$DMAGA, a meme coin built on the Solana blockchain, is being pumped by various accounts across X and crypto-pumping blogs. It has $1 million in liquidity and has jumped in value over 130,000% since July 21.

The laser eye look is part of the crypto aesthetic. While posters online have photoshopped lasers over characters' eyes for a long time, Bitcoin boosters adopted the laser eyes during a 2021 trend to show their support for holding onto Bitcoin until its value reached $100,000 per coin. Bitcoin was valued at $50,000 in Feb. 2021, when the trend started, and is valued at around $67,428 as of Monday.

According to one account claiming to be behind the coin, Musk started using the profile picture after a member of the $DMAGA team DMed it to him.

The Dark MAGA Coin didn’t immediately respond to questions asking for any proof that Musk had adopted the profile picture to support their coin, or about the history of the token.

What is Dark MAGA?

The Dark MAGA movement is not new. It began in the aftermath of Trump's 2020 election loss, pushing for a more virulent, fascist Republican takeover.

But it lost steam thanks to the Dark Brandon rebuttal, a pro-Biden riff on the right-wing "Let's Go Brandon" chant. Dark Brandon, coined ironically by some internet leftists imagining an unapologetic, take-no-prisoners Biden who implemented his own policies with as unrestrained glee as Trump did on the right. From there, Dark Brandon was picked up by pro-Biden liberal posters as a triumphant, innocuous way to celebrate Biden and turn back the Let's Go Brandon messaging to the right.

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From 2006 to 2013, Google shared users' search queries with third-party websites. Now, those affected are receiving payouts from the 2023 settlement. The first payment was $7.70, but the second was even lower: 12¢.

As decided by a U.S. District Court in California in October 2023, the search engine giant has to pay those affected by the privacy breach a combined $23 million. But because so many people use Google—in 2007 alone, Google hosted over 300 billion searches—the payout for each affected individual was estimated to be $7.16, though many online say they received $7.70.

Payments initially started going out to affected individuals who filed claims in January, but some of those didn't go through. Thus, all of the money that didn't reach claimants was pooled and then reallocated to those whose initial payments did clear. So, those who received the first payment of $7.70 received another payment of 12¢ (or 11¢, for some) in the last week.

As claimants were able to choose how they received their payments, some said they received their 11¢ or 12¢ via PayPal, Venmo, or even a physical check.

Many were disappointed in how small the second payment was.

"This is got to be a joke," an X user tweeted. "Why did I receive $0.12 from the Google Referrer Header Privacy Settlement?"

"Just received a whopping .11 cents from a Google settlement," another X user wrote. "They coulda kept that."

"What's the point?" a redditor wrote in the r/MildlyInfuriating subreddit, alongside a photo of their check for 12¢.

Others joked that their newfound 12¢ payment made them rich.

"Class action payday! Catch y’all from my private beach while I live off my Google Referrer Header Privacy settlement of $0.12 USD!" an X user said.

"How does everyone plan to spend their Google settlement money?" another person tweeted.

And others said that the tiny second payout wasn't worth their search queries being shared with third-party companies.

"I got my .12 cents payment from the Google header privacy settlement," an X user tweeted. "Is that worth the deception and lies?"

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Franky Bernstein, a prominent Jewish content creator, is slamming TikTok after the platform twice removed a video he posted showing the removal of pro-Hamas graffiti on the Washington Square Arch in New York City.

Bernstein is the founder of Nice Jewish, a community that describes itself as for everyone, where "you don’t have to be Jewish, just nice."

The TikTok saga began on Monday after Bernstein posted a video of himself attempting unsuccessfully to remove graffiti on the arch with a spray bottle and cloth.

Graffiti on the arch included messages reading: "I [heart] Hamas," "Live Laugh Love Hamas," "Free Palestine," "Intifada," and "Glory to the Resistance."

@frankybernstein some H-groupies sprayed graffiti on the Washington Square Arch… #nyc ♬ Frolic (Theme from "Curb Your Enthusiasm" TV Show) - Luciano Michelini

Bernstein posted a follow-up video of the graffiti being successfully removed by a Parks and Recreation employee with a power washer later that day.

"That's very satisfying," he says as he watches the removal. He then thanked the employees who took down the graffiti and offered to buy them a coffee before telling the camera, "dude free America from Hamas bro, what is this shit?"

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Nice Jewish NYC (@nicejewishnyc)

On Monday night, Bernstein's second video—which shows the graffiti being cleaned—was removed by TikTok for the first time for allegedly violating the site's Community Guidelines. Bernstein added in his story that it was removed for showing "criminal activity."

Bernstein posted a screenshot of his appeal, stating: "This is a video of city workers removing hate speech from a national monument and is in no way 'criminal activity,' it is the opposite. It's cleaning up criminal activity."

The appeal was successful, and the video was restored to TikTok Tuesday morning—but that restoration was short-lived.

"A different moderator took it down again," Bernstein said in an Instagram post on Tuesday. "This is blatant at this point."

He said the video was instead cited for "harassment and bullying" and that it appeared to be permanently banned by the platform.

Following TikTok's second removal, Bernstein rebuked the platform's practices and called for his community to come together to do something.

"I have spent almost 3 years building a community of over half a million Jewish people and our friends on TikTok to fight hate and now I can't even post because I removed graffiti from a national monument," he wrote.

Bernstein claimed that bots are mass-reporting his and other Jewish content creators' videos, saying "pro-Hamas moderators are taking down the content while hateful content towards [Jews] is running rampant."

He continued: "People say 'boycott TikTok' which is not the answer because then we stand completely voiceless on their platform. We need to come together and do something about this."

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Franky Bernstein (@frankyburns)

The comment section under the post detailing TikTok's actions showed a large outcry, with users commending Bernstein for removing the graffiti and others criticizing TikTok.

After the Daily Dot inquired about the matter, the video was restored.

Bernstein said he was not formally notified of its reinstatement but saw it had been re-uploaded after randomly checking the app.

A TikTok spokesperson told the Daily Dot on Wednesday that the video was reinstated and that creators can appeal when they believe content is wrongly removed.

The company also said that its moderation teams receive training that addresses implicit bias as well as TikTok's policies regarding hateful and extremist content.

Bernstein's episode is not the first time concerns have been raised about TikTok's content moderation practices, particularly in the wake of the outbreak of the current conflict in Gaza, which has fueled a surge in both antisemitic and Islamophobic hate speech across platforms.

In early November, a group of Jewish content creators and celebrities accused TikTok in a letter of failing to protect Jewish creators and the community on its platform. The group said creators were receiving daily death threats and other threatening comments and harassment. Members of Congress have also blasted the app, claiming its pro-Palestine bent is radicalizing young people.

In a statement shared on its website the same day as the letter's publication, TikTok said that antisemitism has never been allowed on its platform and that in the weeks following Oct. 7, it had removed hundreds of thousands of videos that violated "policies around violence, hate speech, misinformation, and terrorism, including content promoting Hamas."

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Trump Media announced last week that it had signed an agreement with a company called Perception Group, Inc. to buy live stream television infrastructure for its social media platform Truth Social 

But a video on the company’s YouTube channel proposing nationalized, government-controlled streaming infrastructure is raising eyebrows.

Perception Group Inc., which is registered in Canada, will provide the services through a few subsidiaries registered in the U.K. and Slovenia.

“Have you ever pondered the question: who holds the reins over the media we consume every day?” asks a narrator in a video uploaded last November. “Is it the giant tech corporations or could it be the government?”

“In this rapidly changing digital world, it’s time to consider the potential of a national, government-controlled content delivery network,” the video proposes as an answer to that question. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) are server groups installed across the world that cache content to help it load quickly for wherever you’re accessing it from.

“This shit sounds ominous,” posted one redditor highlighting the video on the r/DJT_Uncensored subreddit, which is devoted to discussing the Trump Media Group. 

The video said a federally run CDN would be a “means for governments to regain their influence over media distribution” and noted an “enhanced control over content.”  

The video highlights that it could be similar to government control over the television airwaves.

And the idea of Trump launching a massive content delivery network and then taking back the White House sounded ominous to some on the forum.

Trump has long threatened networks whose journalistic arms have covered him, proposing to revoke their broadcast licenses. 

"It's totally possible that a CDN is developed under the guise of national security," worried one redditor.

The user who flagged the video said that it popped up on the YouTube channel right around the time Trump Media began hunting for a video service provider. 

Others, though, thought the video wasn’t nearly as right-wing authoritarian as some hyped.

“Don’t let Trump watch this. They showed wind turbines, mentioned reducing CO2, and care for the environment…” replied u/tetrisan.

The video does highlight what it says could be some potential benefits of a government-owned CDN, claiming that “a move towards a national CDN is also a step towards environmental sustainability,” and that “the deployment of efficient video servers contributes to a greener approach to streaming, significantly reducing CO2 emissions associated with it.”

A 2022 report from the International Energy Agency found that there was no “comprehensive data” on energy use by the data centers that power video streaming, though some writers have argued that the environmental impact of streaming a two-hour movie can produce as much pollution as taking a 45-minute car ride.

“With the expansion of AI and CDN technologies, the internet has become the fastest-growing energy consumer ever created by mankind,” notes a text caption in the Perception Group video.

It says that building a government-controlled CDN “represents a commitment to low-energy consumption and environmental responsibility.”

Trump, as well as his supporters, have long challenged any government action that could contribute to slowing climate change.

Trump Media and Perception didn’t immediately respond to questions from the Daily Dot.

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Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, announced today that it will now be removing content that attacks Zionists utilizing antisemitic tropes, such as claiming Zionists hoard power or comparing them to vermin.

Antisemitism is prejudice against Jewish people and Zionism is the belief that a Jewish nation should exist. Not all Zionists are Jewish, nor are all Jewish people Zionists. However, since Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel, many institutions and platforms have grappled with the differences between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, frequently conflating the two and deeming any criticism of Israel as hate speech.

In its updated hate speech policy, Meta stated it will remove “content attacking ‘Zionists’ when it is not explicitly about the political movement” and uses antisemitic tropes.

"We do allow people to criticize adherents of political affiliations and ideologies," Meta stated in a post from its Transparency Center. "For example, we would remove a post that says, 'People of ‘X religion’ are stupid,' but we would allow, 'Supporters of ‘X political movement’ are stupid.'"

Those tropes include the harmful stereotype that Jewish people run the world or control the media; that they are pigs, vermin, or diseased; or that they should be physically harmed.

"We recognize there is nothing approaching a global consensus on what people mean when they use the term 'Zionist,'" Meta stated. "However, based on our research, engagement, and on-platform investigation into its use as a proxy term for Jewish people and Israelis in relation to certain types of hateful attacks, we will now remove content that targets 'Zionists'... on the basis that 'Zionist' in those instances often appears to be a proxy for Jewish or Israeli people."

According to Meta, the shift in approach comes after the company examined uses of the word "Zionist" on its platforms at recent Policy Forum meetings.

But it has the potential to further silence pro-Palestinian voices on the platform, potentially reigning in any criticism of Israel. Since Oct. 7, Meta has been accused multiple times of censoring pro-Palestinian voices on Instagram and Facebook.

In May, multiple pro-Palestinian student groups said their accounts were frozen because Meta claimed the groups "shared or sent symbols, praise, or support of people [Meta defines] as dangerous, or followed them" after posting about the Rafah Massacre, during which Israel struck shelters that housed Palestinian civilians in a city it had designated as a safe zone.

In the lead-up to Meta's policy change, pro-Palestinian political and community groups, including the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Jewish Voice for Peace garnered over 50,000 signatures on a petition asking Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, to not "further silence criticism of the Israeli military, Israeli government, and Zionism by shutting down conversations involving the term 'Zionist.'"

"Meta: We need to talk about Genocide," the petition stated. "Don't censor our speech."

Since Oct. 7, over 38,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli military offensives.

In the wake of Meta's policy announcement, many pro-Israel groups praised the company and called the updated guidelines "a crucial step in the fight against online antisemitism."

But one prominent online account, in supporting Meta, claimed the use of the term was inherently antisemitic, accidentally highlighting the concerns with the policy.

"@Meta is taking a much-needed step forward in combatting modern day antisemitism as it will now ban posts in which Jews are targeted with the alternative term 'Zionist,'" @StopAntisemisim, a non-profit organization "dedicated to exposing" antisemites, tweeted today. "'Zionist' is a clear proxy for hate speech and StopAntisemitism is thrilled with the tech giant's policy decision."

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Update 11:20am CT, July 11: As of July 8, both Storment’s personal and the Trans March’s Instagram accounts were restored. The original story appears below.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, suspended San Francisco Trans March organizer and creative producer Niko Storment’s Instagram account for “human exploitation” over the weekend. Storment’s Instagram account focuses on connecting trans and queer artists with job opportunities in the art and creative world.

Meta defines "human exploitation” as sex trafficking, selling forced labor, forced criminal activity, and the recruitment of child soldiers, among other things—all of which Storment categorically denies he has ever engaged in.

Storment is the executive director of Rosen Creative House, a trans-owned creative agency that represents queer and trans people. He told the Daily Dot he has hired trans people via Instagram—"but not for human trafficking"—and said that Meta's suspension of his account is "really appalling and disgusting."

"I'm not a human trafficker," Storment told the Daily Dot. "The only thing that I could think of that would be seen like that is the fact that we hire pretty much all queer and trans people."

Screenshots shared with the Daily Dot by Storment, show the producer has posted casting calls for trans and queer models and performers. One was about an opportunity for queer, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) models.

“Looking for 6 models that identify with both AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) and LGBTQ+ identities,” Storment wrote in his Instagram story. “Compensation: $50 Visa Gift Card.”

Another call was for a music video shoot for trans singer and performer Carter Ray. 

“We’re shooting a music video at sunset centering transmasculine individuals. We’ll hang out, party by the bonfire, and connect with each other,” Storment’s casting call said. “Bring two looks, one for daytime at the beach, and one for the nighttime bonfire.”  

The video’s final product is as Storment described in his casting call.

“This conflation [of sex work] and regulation around trans people working … is honestly really appalling and disgusting,” Storment told the Daily Dot.

Storment also runs the Instagram account for the San Francisco Trans March, which was also suspended as a result of his personal account being penalized.

The march took place on June 28 and was attended by over 10,000 people. The annual San Francisco Trans March is one of the largest trans events in the world and the Instagram account had over 5,000 followers.

Storment and the Trans March accounts were suspended the day after. In an email to Storment, Meta noted that all accounts associated with his personal account were shut down.

Storment also said that he believes Meta engages in algorithmic content policing that was "set up to silence queer and trans people."

In 2021, @Autogyniphiles_Anonymous, a trans-led meme account with 26,000 followers at the time, was censored by Instagram after being mass-reported. And last year, Mashable reported that Instagram shadow-banned LGBTQ accounts, resulting in their content not appearing on their followers’ feeds.

Combating the misconception that the only work trans people do is sex work is something Storment and his peers have had to deal with before.

“The first time I ever tried to get event insurance and I spent about an hour on the phone with the guy and he essentially heard what we did and denied us for insurance because he thought I was basically a pimp,” Storment told the Daily Dot, “based solely on the fact we work with dancers, trans women, and burlesque performers.”

When Storment appealed Meta's decision, he said the company doubled down and again accused his account of using Instagram to engage in human trafficking.

Storment said he spoke with a Meta employee who told him that it's "highly likely" that the suspensions were the result of "mass reporting" and Storment said his case has been passed around to multiple different Meta customer service workers.

The Daily Dot could not independently confirm the Meta employee's account.

Storment also theorized that his account being suspended was a result of the San Francisco Trans March posting in support of Palestine.

Since Hamas' October 7 attack on Israel, Meta has censored pro-Palestinian accounts and voices on its platforms.

In the post, @transmarch said Palestinian liberation and queer liberation are linked and called for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.

"I think my account was on high alert/flagged because of Palestine posts on [@TransMarch]," Storment said. "And [Meta was] looking for a reason to be able to take it down completely."

The Daily Dot has not been able to verify the claim about mass reporting. Meta did not immediately respond to the Daily Dot's request for comment.

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The Supreme Court issued a ruling today calling into question state laws that block social media companies from making moderation decisions. But in the decision, TikTok caught a stray.

The Court did not rule whether the laws were constitutional but challenged findings by the lower courts and sent them back for review.

According to the court’s majority decision, state laws that try to control the type of content platforms can choose to publish, or not publish in the case of moderation decisions like bans, could violate First Amendment protection.

But a concurring opinion from at least one justice points to there being at least one possible case where those First Amendment arguments would fall flat: for foreign-owned companies.

The ruling addresses cases brought by Netchoice, an industry lobbying group that represents big tech firms like TikTok, Facebook, and X, against the Florida and Texas attorneys general. 

Those companies sued after the two states passed laws challenging social media companies' rights to ban politicians and censor content in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s removal from their platforms after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. 

The laws passed by the states limited the moderation social media companies could make by requiring explanations to be provided to users who had their content restricted and implementing steep fines for companies that banned politicians.

The Supreme Court didn’t rule whether the state laws were unconstitutional, but that the lower courts needed to reevaluate the First Amendment implications.

Netchoice and other groups who supported their case celebrated the decision.

“The majority rightly recognizes that Florida and Texas laws are more sweeping than the sponsors suggest,” the National Taxpayers Union, who filed an amicus brief questioning the constitutionality of the state laws, wrote in a press release.

But a concurring opinion, written by Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett, was quickly noticed by commentators for including a possible carve-out that might catch companies like TikTok, whose parent company is the Chinese company ByteDance.

“Justice Barrett hinting how she might resolve TikTok's lawsuit,” posted @fedjudges on X, pointing to a section in Barrett’s analysis discussing free speech protections for corporations.

“With TikTok case looming, notable that Justice Barrett goes out of her way to discuss foreign ownership of a social-media platform,” posted Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matthew Schettenhelm, pointing to the same section.

“Corporations, which are composed of human beings with First Amendment rights, possess First Amendment rights themselves,” noted Barrett in her opinion, citing the Citizens United precedent. “But foreign persons and corporations located abroad do not.”

Barrett explained why the court was deciding to remand the case to the lower courts by discussing the complicated ways companies use algorithms to moderate and serve content to users. 

She wrote that algorithmic decisions cut off humans from many moderation decisions on platforms, which could complicate the provision in the Florida and Texas laws to provide users with explanations for every decision.

But she also wrote that in the case of foreign-owned corporations, the picture might be clearer.

“[A] social-media platform’s foreign ownership and control over its content moderation decisions might affect whether laws overriding those decisions trigger First Amendment scrutiny,” Barrett wrote. “What if the platform’s corporate leadership abroad makes the policy decisions about the viewpoints and content the platform will disseminate? Would it matter that the corporation employs Americans to develop and implement content moderation algorithms if they do so at the direction of foreign executives? Courts may need to confront such questions when applying the First Amendment to certain platforms.”

TikTok didn’t immediately respond to questions about the company’s position on the implications of the opinion.

After Congress passed a law in April requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok within a year, the company sued the government over the law, calling it unconstitutional. The company sued on numerous First Amendment grounds, which Barrett may have intimated do not factor into the case.

That case is expected to be argued in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. in September.

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