Posted on by markusoreallyus · 2 Comments

Meta bollocks

You have to love social media. A friend (cousin, actually) posted, as a joke, a hilarious video of some whacked out conspiracy theorist talking about AI and vaccines and quantum entanglement — managing to get all three wrong. I commented, “where can I get those drugs?” Because only someone on a crazy trip could be so delusional.

Within seconds, Facebook notified me that my comment had been removed for violating “community standards”. They thought my comment somehow promoted the sale of illicit drugs.

What humourless community came up with these standards? And who allowed them to train Facebook’s model?

Their notification offered me the option of having my comment reviewed. I took them up on that. “You misunderstood my comment,” I selected from the list. On the next screen they provided another list. I chose, “It was a joke.”

A few seconds later, I was advised that they were putting restrictions on my account. I am not allowed to create ads, start or join calls, or create live videos for a month. All because their shit algorithms took offence to what I said, and further offence to my request for a review.

There is no option to appeal beyond this point. The algorithm has found you guilty, and that’s that.

This might be less galling were it not for Facebook’s role in spreading the kind of disinformation that makes cooks worry that quantum entanglement will trigger the nano bots implanted by vaccines when in the vicinity of a 5G signal. And that is hardly the worst of what they do.

Once upon a time, Facebook and other social media platforms at least pretended to be about sharing with people with whom you choose to associate. But it’s rare to see anything posted by someone you know. The majority of the slop in our feeds is advertising, and much of it promoting disinformation.

The only reasons I have accounts are to (try to) keep up with friends and family I don’t have an opportunity to see face-to-face all that often, and to promote my band. Otherwise, I would kick Facebook, Instagram & every other platform to the curb. I’ve done that before, and it may come to it again.

Posted on by markusoreallyus

Happy New Year?

Barely mid-January, and it’s a crazy year already.

The pumpkin-coloured pedo ostensibly running what used to be America, who insists he should have won the Nobel Peace Prize, has launched an illegal military operation in Venezuela, threatened to do something similar in Columbia and Cuba, and to send troops into Mexico to battle drug cartels, and is planning to invade Greenland. All while attacking his own people wherever they didn’t vote for him in sufficient numbers, even killing an unarmed woman for the sin of not complying with the orders of masked ICE thugs.

NATO countries plan for the previously unimaginable scenario of one member attacking another. How can they stand up to the US? How can they not? Putin must be laughing himself silly at the prospect.

The people of Iran, and especially the young, have had enough of the oppressive theocrats who have governed them since deposing the corrupt Shah back in 1979. Said theocrats have responded by massacring protesters in the thousands. Still the people refuse to back down. I hope they succeed. I hope they win their freedom, and are able to write the story of their country in the terms of their choosing.

The world is pivoting, like it or not, from the “order” that was formed in the wake of the Second World War: an order that was responsible for 80 years of relative peace (at least for some). That peace, of course, didn’t extend to much of what we used to call “the Third World.” There, proxy wars raged. In Afghanistan, in Vietnam, in the Middle East. But nothing on the scale of the two wars that defined the first half of the 20th century.

And so, I haven’t been writing much. I haven’t been reading or listening to music enough. Haven’t been playing music enough.

I have wasted too much time doomscrolling on social media, where much of what is presented has been generated and distributed by algorithms. AI generated images and videos and even music have become difficult to distinguish from reality. The idea of reality begins to seem quaint, as does the concept of truth.

How should we live in such moments? I turn to the late, great Neil Peart for some inspiration. In particular, these lines from the Rush song “Faithless”:

Like a stone in the river
Against the floods of spring
I will quietly resist

Like the willows in the wind
Or the cliffs along the ocean
I will quietly resist