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As readers may have noticed, this site has been yet again hit by a considerable DDoS attack in the last few days. This attack was followed by a series of reports to Twitter, whereby information posted by us related to multi billion dollar corruption scandals, which are already in the public domain, somehow get categorised as "personal private information" by Twitter algorithms and are summarily deleted. Given that we have been forced to delete a number of tweets (see UPDATE here), we decided to give Instagram a try, only to find that its Community Guidelines are as preposterous as Twitter's Terms of Service. Narco and money launderer Gonzalo Morales Divo is the perfect exhibit.
Morales Divo pleaded guilty to money laundering and bribe payment charges in the U.S. and was involved in drug trafficking in his native Venezuela. He belongs to that "entrepreneurial" class of Venezuelan thugs able to bribe their way to procurement, drug trafficking and whatever other illicit activities to become household members of the Boliburgeoisie, that then decamp to Miami to launder illicit proceeds. Caught inexplicably in a tight knit circle of Miami operators frequented by Lilian Tintori (Leopoldo Lopez's other half), Morales Divo lost his cool and called this site's editor dozens of times back in June, shouting all manner of threats. Sources have informed this site that the episode was rather typical of Morales Divo, a substance abuser.
In that 12 hour episode, Morales Divo called, texted and emailed. We took it to Instagram, and posted the following:
The above needs no interpretation, no need to be a linguist to see it is as clear a threat as it gets. However Instagram algorithms first attempted to delete post in question claiming it was a violation to Community Guidelines on harassment or bullying. We appealed and post was reinstated. Then, Morales Divo (aka @fantasmagorico777) tried the privacy policy route, and succeeded, for this time no chance of appeal was given.
Instagram does not allow users to appeal such take down / deletion measures. Twitter does, but it doesn't even bother considering / replying appeals.
It is clear by now that criminals like Morales Divo have figured, precisely, the censorship measure of social media whether it is Instagram or Twitter. Morales Divo's chums, Luis and Ignacio Oberto Anselmi, applied exactly the same formula in Twitter, and managed to get information about their $4.25 billion money laundering scheme deleted. Ditto their banker, Victor Vargas, he too must have hired same social media manager.
Getting rid of uncomfortable information from the public domain that shows criminal behaviour no longer needs expensive lawyers. For that, there's Twitter, Instagram and Facebook "community guidelines".
