Silicon Valley’s Censorship

I continue to believe that the “social media” websites were a naive idea that would allow the site to capture all sorts of information of value to advertisers, and people would enjoy talking to each other online, instead of having to pick up the phone or write an individual message. Naive, because it didn’t recognize how hard it is for people to get along — just in a family, let alone in a venue where they are talking to what is essentially the whole internet.

Twitter depends on celebrities who develop long lists of followers — simply because they are celebrities. (they have recognizable faces). Ordinary people get banned for saying something recognizably conservative, but celebrities are free to spout vicious, vile insults of the president or his supporters all they choose — because that’s what gets Twitter attention. Donald Trump’s tweets will never be banned, nor will Cher’s.

Now there’s a report that social media giant Facebook has developed a hidden system to assign “reputation scores” to users, rating their trustworthiness according to multiple factors, in order to pick out the “malicious actors on the platform.” Uh huh. They are not going to reveal how they do it because that might screw up their algorithms. It has been compared to the Chinese government’s “social credit system” which is a rating for every citizen in the country which hands out points for tradition credit scores, surveillance data collected by millions of cameras, internet tracking and bonuses for people who perform “heroic acts.”

Last I heard Silicon Valley thought the Southern Poverty Law Center was a good source, along with the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Good grief, look at the comments on any popular website. They get really raunchy with vile language and insults, and threats as well. I am becoming anxious about the general tone in the Leftist’s Trump Derangement Syndrome — which has already become somewhat dangerous. Think of the Congressional softball game. If they keep this up, somebody is going to get killed.