Even though F***book is a publicly traded private entity, the company regularly assaults the premise of the First Amendment.
Operating at full capacity in a bustling portrait of a Cold War era Soviet marketplace offering desperate consumers and comrades a wealth of ideology instead of desired goods, the social networks exist as a frustrating complex dichotomy to free market principles. Billions of dollars cascade into the San Jose office building lobby atriums with the resounding gravity and heavy volume of a rugged waterfall. While the overall technology achievements in hosting and managing such a vast and complex electronic empire rival the wonder and riveting nuances of a provocative modern day Super Bowl halftime show, which may or may not involve a steel pole, the blatant subtleties dictating social media morays continues to deviate further from the proven and reliable decision making processes of the human brain. A trend that is fully embraced by the Silicon Valley leadership and a politically driven ulterior motive. Even in the best of times without the scapegoat of a politicized virus, end users can hope for and expect a limited scope of impressions when posting opinionated content specifically the endorsement of politics leaning a certain way, as both human and software bots are calibrated to furtively deploy moderation efforts.
Living in times that are not simply just interesting, thanks to China, but infuriatingly eclectically evocative in morphing closet hypochondriacs into restless raving forensic scientists investigating the proliferation of germs on a domestic scale, is complicated by the detrimental flaws of the digital construct purposefully hindering interaction and expression. While hundreds of millions of amateur sleuths tirelessly investigate and evaluate the potential threat level of the cause and effect blockchain event sequence of hand sanitizing and OCD surface cleanings, the panic stemming from the Coronavirus directly alters the landscape of the tech worker landscape from the standpoint of logistics. As the federal government has invoked social distancing standards, the leaders of the tech world have opted to send their legions of human thought police home and not allowing any platform regulatory attempts from remote locations.
In an unsettling proportional extinction event driven by hysteria, the net amount of unreasonable fear generated by the pathogen, has led to an absence of individuals collaborating with the prevalence of algorithms moderating F***book and the other online community giants. The resulting maelstrom is a great litmus test for decision makers and data scientists evaluating and isolating the performance of AI, but is an absolute catastrophe for account holders attempting to communicate through friends and colleagues through their social media accounts. Over the recent weeks since the moderation teams have been disbanded, chaos is looming as a grandfather posting photos of a fishing trip with his grandson is inexplicably flagged and banned by automated processes dictated by a heuristic programmed standard of logic, rather than the eyes and ears of fellow humans. Though the moderation staff are not saints as violence against toddlers is allowed to persist, the flesh and blood sentries may be on their way to being expendable. To the overengineered and meticulous hive mind of system dynamics, hanging fish proudly displayed by individuals spanning the generational spectrum certainly violates the ambiguous community standards of online communities. The ambitious pseudo-intellectuals running the show have sent the riderless BMX bicycle in the inconspicuous suburban neighborhood on a collision course with an uninspiring destiny tinkering with the socio-biological order of productive society.
F***book has deemed in a public decree that actually makes some sense to improve the handling of personal data, that there are just too many risks involved in allowing sensitive content to leave the corporate campus, at least through regulated channels. Thus, the legions of contract employees who handle the dissemination of user content are at least for the time being are out of the moderation equation, as the corporate entities rely on AI to make countless and crucial decisions. 20,000 in number to be exact will be furloughed to their respective residences until the wait and see methodology of bureaucracy scuttles the US economy. How worse can it get with machines forced to follow the intolerable directions emanating from Mark Zuckeberg and crew? The deliberate input of linear arguments programmed into the software bots, including “conservatives= bad”, “guns= bad and dangerous”, and “self-defense= anarchy” is only a small sample size of the logical imperatives embraced by the social media tycoons, and leaves no room for compromise.
If the social networks did not receive enough criticism before the latest wave of controversy, the remainder of the quarantine may permanently alter the future and perception of online interaction. As no pay to play infrastructure exists outside of the distinction of the world’s biggest advertising agency pawning packaged commercial purchases, onsite traffic is recession or plague-proof to the threshold of entire continents of population being wiped out. The current alternative and affliction that the older generations are currently struggling with in embracing heads transfixed within a smartphone screen as a viable substitution for the classic definition of interpersonal meetings. With real life social gatherings of any magnitude banned by all levels of government, the current insufferable means of electronic stimulation only manages to raise tensions and contribute to the collective angst.
As the “stay at home” orders have been extended past Easter, which includes the closure of parks and recreational facilities, the paltry offerings available on the flawed and pretentious digital realm transcend the ridiculousness amidst the current predicament of visceral overreactions. Now that the social networks have activated the autopilot switch in the complete automation of moderation protocol, the rare instances of productive dialogue are sure to be shadow banned in a nonsensical display of machine modeling executing judgement calls in the absence of wisdom or empathy.
The only recourse to the content discerning bot trial by fire, is that people realize the importance of live social interaction during the remainder of this cumbersome process. As Capitalism is based on the latitude and the motivation of the population congregating in public to freely share ideas and conversation that holds not bounds, the idea that software creations have been elevated to decision making is both a stab in the dark and to the heart of society by the techosphere in pathetically attempting to define rules and norms that have remained steadfast for hundreds of years and should be immune to change.
Over the course of history, humanity has faced innumerable instances of natural disasters, plagues, famines, and warfare, only to rise about the tragedies and overcome impossible odds in not only surviving, but thriving. The idea of succumbing to the actions of an early generation virtual reality matrix and AI construct is not an uplifting or foreseeable future, as folks simply have to remain vigilant in separating the dreamworld instant gratification glitz of the devices from the steadfast and timeless instincts which separates society from the contrived randomness of the adjacent cosmos.
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