Automated filtering is dubious at best for someone claiming to be, “for,” freedom of speech. I’m writing this as a proper blog entry on my own site as I’m waiting to see if they accept my appeal there or I have to delete the otherwise valid post. I’m minded to mull over the problem in full and maybe spell out a path out of this.
Mere word filtering isn’t capable of handling the English language. PERIOD.
Anyone telling you it can is a bad liar. AI isn’t at-all better. It’s not good enough to understand the nuances of the English language or have enough data to properly produce results for queries like, “Who is the owner(s) of record for the Half-Arabian mare, ‘TR Natashaa’?” I’ve gotten all sorts of hallucinations (YES!) out of the things with that simple question. (Answer is Frank and Lisa Earl…namely Lisa and myself.) If you can’t manage that much with an automated solution not involving a human explicitly, and excuse my language choices here, you can’t fucking expect the damn stuff to filter for, “problematic,” speech that way.
You can only rely on a Human to review a Human’s reporting a potential problem.
If you don’t have enough staff, and you’ve promised freedom of speech within those parameters- too fucking bad. Seriously. You can’t claim the one and expect to be taken seriously any more on that note. At least not with that business. So, I can’t take Elon Musk seriously with regards to X. Not any more. You can’t automate this. It’s not within the levels of ability for Mankind in the matter being done. You can’t be serious, claiming you’re for freedom of speech and do that. It’s mutually exclusive. It is merely telling yourself and everyone about you lies if you can’t rip that crap out of the product- or telling everyone you’re managing on that low a staff.
Disappointing.
Also, it will not do.
Elon’s right about the need there and a need to eradicate the Woke mind virus wherever I, myself, can and have the ability to do so. As with Jefferson, I have sworn upon the Altar of God, eternal Hostility towards any form of Tyranny over the mind of man.
Including this, the subject of this rant. It’s why I claim that one absolutely can not be serious about things there as it’s another form of Tyranny, another expression of the WOKE MIND VIRUS doing this shit. It’s just doing it on the sly instead of being out in the open about it. It’s deeply disappointing to see this going on and nobody, even the person that claims he’s dedicated to eradicating the Woke mind virus…off exhibiting it himself there. One doesn’t even know if he’s aware of it. To be honest? I don’t really care. Not any more.
So, what to do?
Not sure yet. I don’t really want to go do the BlueSky play…not yet at least. I’m going to start working on mostly shared-nothing configuration fully decentralized solutions. I have been off and on putzing with a few. The thing is that if it’s merely federated…it won’t work. Centralization lets people control the content like a publisher. But that control can be misused as evidenced by Twitter before Elon, by Facebook to date, and others.
One of the problems is that people seem to think that they’ve a right to not beoffended/bothered/etc. The only time you have a right to that is with things that’re honestly offensive like threats of harm, child pornography, etc. Things in that vein are handled by the law in almost all jurisdictions eventually. The real problem, though, is in trying to dictate any semblance of a Terms of Service. A centralized solution or a federated one is restricted in what it can safely do due to Civil litigation concerns. So it has to do things like this, even though they’re at-odds with the claims of Freedom of Speech. Or it offers an excuse to control like you see with Facebook and the Liberals claims of, “Misinformation,” and a perceived need to control it. (Misinformation is a Neo-marxist notion. There is only information and it can be good or bad- but it can’t be defined by one person as being bad. Only reality defines THAT. Oh, Elon, if you’re actually reading this…an aside to YOU. This is why I say what I’ve all said here. Is it any different? If I say, “hang,” in the legal consequences sense, legitimately, and you ban me (Hint!!) are you any damned different than Zuckerberg and his company on that note?)
In the end, you either get the player to wise up…or take your ball and move on.
I find the latter to be gauche to just do like the Libs and do a BlueSky…right now. That being said? I’m fully capable of going there all the same. I see no good way out of things, all the same. Centralized (Federated is still that…it’s just spread out over multiple shards…) social media is a bad dead-end and a liability. I’ve seen it that way for a while now. X brought a promise that maybe it wasn’t so much so. Nope. It fails on a central tenet and ends up talking out both sides of the mouth…just like it’s prior incarnation. It’s just a little freer…that’s it.
I’m running out of a bit of steam here on the rant…and of time to put it to words, so I’ll close with this. Either X needs to rip that crap out and assidiously curbstomp impulses to go where they still are…or they, too, need to go the way the mainstream newsmedia is now rapidly going. We need to eradicate the Woke mind virus where it lives. We need to be eternally vigilant and hostile to these Tyrannies over the Mind of Man. I won’t take away others’ choices, you can choose those chains. Don’t expect me to accept them willingly or lightly, though. I will ultimately show the way…it’s up to each of you to follow or not. I will see something come to pass as a digital commons…whatever form that takes.
I’m not going to wait, though. Expecting people to do this for me just leads me to disappointment and worse. I’m done with that.
[Edit 11/27/2024]
I have come to find that any functionality wherein you place a submission to X is turned off for me. Over using the word, “hang”… Not even able to do Grok queries.
Elon, I really need you to explain how this is even remotely fucking in keeping in with your claims, now. I’d love to have that conversation in person…not that I’m ever going to.
C’mon…surprise me. Might even get some other things going. Things quite in keeping with your claims. Right now, I’m going to accept that you meant it all…and that there’s a bunch of people that are making you look the liar…because that’s what it all has as an impression.
Behave according to some undisclosed algorithm or lose your access to everything…doesn’t sound like freedom of speech to me…does it to you?