Please do Opt Out if “AI” features of software and platforms.

Tale as old as time with tech… still waiting on that chat interoperability!

Definitely fascinating how algorithms are equated to freedom of speech. I can understand if a person makes an expression that their freedom to do so can be an issue. But an American social media company’s algorithm developed over time for various designs, including addiction and maximum engagement, is probably not the kind of expression that most people would consider speech.

Even raising the issue suggests that these social media companies have engaged in a form of censorship on their own. We’ve all been exposed to various degrees of this censorship. For example, those of us who watch YouTube are aware of the platforms restrictions on the use of certain words like suicide or COVID. Content creators have gone so far as to either self-censor the word entirely, or use new alternatives to circumvent the system, like “sluercide”, “self-delete”. At some point these types of circumventions may even be heard in real life even if there is no need to self-correct in this way.

So I find it incredibly bizarre to see one of the arguments against trying to regulate social media companies at all would be “censorship” or “freedom of speech”. Our global communities have already been subjected to mass censorship. We’re bombarded with bot “farms” intended to observe and manipulate these algorithms.

We’re not talking about freedom of speech anymore…we’re talking about propaganda in small and large scale operations. We’re talking about surveillance, we’re talking about the need for the human right of true, real discourse vs watching people literally enchant themselves into some algorithmic LLM psychosis. We’re trying to have a real discussion about a form of warfare generally referred to as psychological operations at a massive scale.

No one cares about my or your Uncle’s opinion on vaccinations and his unhealthy fixation on ivermectin. We should all care about how his time on American social media turned him on these topics.

“Algorithm” is not a synonym for “recommendation system”.