Big-Tech Censorship Using Algorithms and Gatekeepers is Psychological Abuse
Perhaps the biggest reason we free-thinkers need to build IRL community is because we need a support group where we know we are welcome and we belong-- along with our views and questions.
Caitlin Johnstone has written about the damage being done to our society by big tech censorship in her piece “Censorship By Algorithm Does Far More Damage Than Conventional Censorship”. I’d like to add to her critique, which describes socio-political damage on a massive scale, by suggesting the truth of her title-premise is even more profound when the psychological damage being done to individuals by censorship is considered.
Damage done by mass big-tech censorship can go far beyond politico-socio-economic fallout that skews perceptions of "what people are saying" or "what everyone knows". For those who don't even know they're being censored, the psychological damage of implied shunning & ostracizing along with the seemingly near-total unresponsiveness of their many thousands of "fallowers"1 can be alienating, isolating and seriously harmful. Even though, under big-tech censorship, most of their followers never even see their posts, let alone make a conscious choice to ignore them, the feeling of isolation— of being alone in one's views— is oppressive, psychologically damaging and akin to being rejected by thousands of people who once seemed to share an affinity.
For social media users who are unaware they’ve been targeted for censorship, the censoring “behavior” of the social media platform’s computer servers can be mistakenly attributed to the indifference of the actual people behind their hundreds, or even thousands, of follower accounts. The apparent ostracization is unwittingly personified by a user who assumes people who were previously interested in what they had to say have now suddenly or gradually changed their minds and no longer find them interesting. In other words, even though their apparent ostracization is the result of impersonal computer algorithms, it still feels every bit as real and damaging as if a very large group of people suddenly turned their backs on them and were giving them “the silent treatment”. 2
Today, in 2022, such online ostracizing often comes on top of real-world pandemic ostracizing and isolation, particularly for those who've opted out of COVID vaccination. Families, churches, restaurants and gathering places, gyms and, in lockdown countries, virtually all public spaces are closed to dissenters. All these people and places are no longer there for them. These real-world isolating conditions can seem to confirm or lend validity to the user’s assumptions about online ostracizing.
Charles Eisenstein has written about the social and psychological harms of the global responses to the COVID pandemic in his “Pandemania” series.
I would genuinely love hear Caitlin Johnstone and Charles Eisenstein discuss the combined harms and impacts of both pandemic policy and big-tech censorship on individuals and various freedom movements (medical freedom and free speech) that seem to have more common cause than is typically supposed. It seems to me that the impacts aren’t just additive, but could be synergistic (multiplied).
I wouldn't be surprised if we learn, at some future date when it's too late to make a difference, that suicides spiked in recent years as a result of the cumulative and synergistic impacts of all of these forms of psychological damage, some of it real-world-human, some of it institutional and some of it online-algorithmic.
But we shouldn’t wait for such research. Hindsight in the context of suicides is one of the most bitter sorrows in human experience. We should be building community and strengthening social connections for those who would otherwise be ostracized, both in the real-world and online using better tools and platforms that we’ll invent or re-invent to circumvent the censorship we are currently experiencing.
In April, I drove ten hours to visit two like-minded friends who happened to be at the same place at the same time for just a day. The fact that I felt there was no question the drive was worth it underscored how hungry I’ve been for companions who see and understand the world more or less as I do. I don’t imagine that the millions of people in the cities along that drive don’t see and understand the world like I do. I just don’t know them yet. And I’d like to.
It takes courage to reach out. It takes perseverance to keep reaching out. But that’s what we need to do to find and build community and make the world safe for free thinkers and free speech.
In the early 70’s, my family visited the Portland Art Museum. There was a conceptual art piece on display that consisted of a white wall about six feet tall and six feet wide with a video camera on one side, pointed at the white wall, and a TV on the other side showing a blank white image. The video feed was somewhat crude with static artifacts of 1970’s vintage tech. A cable went from the back of the camera to the wall and, apparently, up to the back of the TV on the other side.
It was impossible for one person to determine if the whiteness on the TV screen was truly the image of the blank white wall or not. As it was a museum art installation, it was very much against the rules to touch the video camera, point it in a different direction or (yikes!) to take a Sharpie and write something on the blank white wall. You could wave a hand in front of the camera, but that meant you’d be on the wrong side of the wall to see if your hand appeared on the TV screen. My sister and I cooperated, with her watching the screen and me waving my hand in front of the camera. She said nothing appeared on the screen (and, of course, I trusted her to report accurately). Together, we learned there was a disconnect between the camera and the TV somewhere. There was censorship happening. But one person, acting alone, could not demonstrate that censorship was occurring. It took two people who trusted each other.
I decided I really liked that conceptual art piece. I don’t know who the artist was, but I wish I did.
And so, the challenge we, as a community, face in demonstrating to both ourselves and to others that censorship is happening is like that— we need to connect, we need to create a community of mutual trust and we need to take actions together against the censorship we suspect/know is occurring. We have to find ways to perturb the system to reveal its inner workings because if we don’t the injust censorship remains invisible.
One crude measurement of censorship on Twitter that I’ve come up with is what I call the “IFT number”. Look at your monthly analytics on Twitter. Calculate your number of followers (F) for each month (working backwards from current number of followers, using the number of followers added or lost during each month) and create a spreadsheet with your monthly Impressions (I), Tweets (T) and Followers (F). If every follower saw every tweet, the number of Impressions would be the F multipled by T (F * T). The “IFT number” is the monthly number of Impressions divided by (F * T), or the ratio I/(F*T).
Through this exercise I was able to see my reach was being reduced over time. But, it’s not enough to know that I’m getting lower IFT numbers over time. It would be helpful to know what numbers other Twitter users are seeing and what their messages are. My guess is that typical #Resisters will see better numbers than I do. Also, I suspect apolitical Tweeters who concentrate on pets and food probably get better exposure than I do. But I don’t know that. It’s just speculation.
Let’s share data, shall we, and see where those discussions lead.
For more about calculating your “IFT” numbers on Twitter, please read my companion piece here.
If I may tweak the spelling of “follower” to evoke the agricultural concept of “fallow” land left unplanted and uncultivated. If, for example, only 50 of my 5000 Twitter followers see my typical tweet, my Twitter-space “land” is 99% fallow— unplanted. We often speak of spreading ideas as “planting seeds”, so when those seeds never reach the fertile ground of the minds of our supposed “followers”, it seems natural to describe our Twitter-space as “fallow” and our disconnected “followers” as not really “followers”, but “fallowers” instead.