Britney Spears has been exposing fakers, directly accusing paparazzi of editing her photos to make them look less flattering.
But photographers may not be the only ones making the world look a little worse.
Fans think that Britney’s social media team is deliberately deleting or burying positive comments — and Britney’s own mom agrees.
“So Britney’s team is deleting positive comments on her Instagram post and leaving negative ones,” alleged a fan page.
The page, absolutebritneycom, suggested that this was a conspiracy “to keep up the illusion that she needs help!”
“They were all so quick to remove all comments before,” the post continued.
“But now all the sudden,” the page pointed out. “They are leaving all negative ones but removing positive ones!”
“How much longer is this going to be?!?” the fan page asked. “This has to be human rights violation!!!!”
The post ended with the tags: “#FreeBritney #britneyspears.”
Of all of the people to engage with that conspiracy theory, Britney’s own mother, Lynne Spears, stood out.
“I can’t believe you just posted this,” she began. “Because I had a friend tell me the same thing!”
Her reply continued: ‘I posted something and tried to go back and find it and none of it is in order and I couldn’t find mine.”
She marveled at the idea of not being able to see her own comment “which I JUST POSTED???”
“I know you are a true fan and love her,” Lynne affirmed. “So thank you for pointing this out.”
Lynne expressed that she was grateful “because I have had others say the same.”
We realize that it may sound odd or even counterintuitive for someone’s own social media team to censor the positive comments.
This conspiracy theory gets another layer, however, as that same fan blog observed that the team seemed desperate to cover their tracks.
“Now all the sudden all the negative comments that have been there for three days on [Britney’s] Instagram are all the sudden gone,” a new post wrote.
“And now,” the post continued. “Britney’s mom comment is now number one, and also the positive comments are seen now?”
Curiouser and curiouser.
“Hmmmmmmm very interesting how I called Team B out on [their] s–t these comments magically appear,” the fan page noted.
“And Britney’s mom comment is number one,” the paged continued. “Very interesting if you ask me.”
“Can’t wait to see what stories are going to come out now about twisting all this around LOL,” the post mused. “But we won’t buy it.”
The page concluded, writing: “Sending you all amazing and beautiful vibes and remember GOOD ALWAYS WINS!!”
Sure enough, Lynne’s comment was suddenly displayed pretty prominently. Take a look at this screenshot:
Conspiracy theories about Britney Spears are nothing new.
People have claimed anything and everything about her, right up to her being an Illuminati clone.
But the conservatorship that her father wields over her is not a theory — that is a documented legal fact.
While Britney recently clarified that she does post her own social media, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t people looking over her shoulder.
(Metaphorically speaking)
So are they really purging positive comments in an effort to gaslight Britney into thinking her own fans hate her?
There may be a more benign explanation for what fans have observed.
Instagram’s algorithm may be pretty good for figuring out what sorts of ads might work on which users, but it’s not perfect.
Like Facebook and Twitter, Instagram does not display things in chronological order.
(Only Tumblr still does that, which is probably why they only lost 30% of their users when they banned porn; people love a clean timeline more than they love boobs)
It could be that Instagram’s algorithm was, for whatever reason, very organically burying nice comments under mean ones.
Perhaps, as Lynne becomes more involved in her daughter’s conservatorship, she will be able to obtain some real answers.
