Once, when I was a young radical who liked to drink and drive (many years-ago), I got arrested in Stonington, CT, by two competent young police officers. I was held overnight and released.
One year later, also in Stonington, CT, and on the same road, and by the same two police officers, I was arrested again, charged with the same thing. It was the kind of score blowing the breath test you can brag about in AA (which all happened)! They say insanity is “doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result!”
I was testing that theory, and I qualified!
They held me overnight. When they released me, I got in my car and drove away, and was immediately pulled over and arrested again; this time it was because I had been told I had to wait, though I didn’t remember being told.
When I look back, I have to laugh. No-one was hurt, and my senseless defiance mixed with sheer ignorance weighed just a little less than the subsequent lessons learned and wisdoms duly shared.
I may laugh, because I’m 30 years-sober, happy, healthy and grateful … but I’m still the same person!
The following article contains some very nasty language.
Enjoy it at your own discretion.
These days I spend way too much time on Twitter. It’s been interesting to see a lot of problems be fixed with Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform. It seemed it could be good place for me to learn about what’s going on, not being able to trust mainstream media, and share my opinions. I tried, for a few years, daily logging-on to Twitter, happily finding like-minded people .
At this point, I will be giving up this quest, due to not being able to defeat a ghost algorithm. It doesn’t exist, I’m sure, if you were to ask around internal Twitter; it’s an algorithm Twitter itself is probably not aware of. Maybe a holdover from one day years-ago when I called Hillary Clinton a cunt. It was a moment of … judgement. Not bad judgement, I don’t think, in retrospect. I never got called out for it, no strike, never deleted my comment, and it was right on Hillary’s profile page under one of her very own posts.
People talk sometimes about “shadowbanning.” This is the idea Twitter hides you from other people but doesn’t let you know they’re hiding you. But shadowbanning isn’t a new thing. It’s the same thing Amazon does to make sure only best-sellers are promoted, Facebook does to control its image, Youtube for whatever communist reason; all sites filter and display, a la Google, the “best” appearance. Google gives you the “best,” the “most relevant” results, based on its opinion.
On Twitter, I maxed out at 4000 followers, then a bunch of robots were deleted awhile back, and I lost 2000 followers in one week (everyone complained; this was pre-Musk). I’m up to 2,500. This is on a platform I use daily, and compares poorly with results I get elsewhere.
I am absolutely certain I am hidden by algorithm, no question in my mind, on Twitter, Amazon (as a seller), YouTube and Facebook, all the “big” sites. In comparison, I often speak highly of Quora, a site where, when I write, I mysteriously get 2000 views in 10 hours, a quarter-million views of my top article, a total of 4-million views in only a few years, 2,000 views every day. What happened, Elon Musk? Why is this tale so consistently sad, except on Quora, a hugely-popular site? Is it because, measuring the quality of my writing, Quora treats me fairly while the rest of you don’t?
Perhaps Twitter believes I should behave better.
Perhaps, unbeknownst to me, Twitter has rules against using certain words and phrases. Damn, I keep hitting that nail on the head! It’s another absolute certainty! Twitter allows using curse words, which I’ve done, but they also DO have rules, nuanced ones they don’t even know about, written and band-aided deep in the bowels of the world’s greatest algorithm beast, probably by a skinny, mentally-ill employee who hates Donald Trump’s hair color.
The fact is, the nuance exists. I can call Hillary a cunt, and nobody cares. But it’s different with other great world leaders.
Now please don’t get the idea I spend my time being rude, but the same person who drove drunk as a young man, more than once … quite recently called Kamala Harris a slut.
Within an hour, my Twitter account was suspended for ten days, PLUS I was required by the little blue bird of arrogance to delete the post. They police this stuff, you know. I don’t know what the rules are, really. No-one does.
I deleted the post, of course!
I proudly waited nine days until little bird allowed me to log in again!
I felt exonerated, free and fiercely brave! I proceeded to browse, explore, use all the Twitter tools and make sure people knew I still existed! That brat Kamala Harris, who thinks she’s some kind of authority, lied about something. Seeing nothing but a bitter, satanic cackling face in my mind, I replied, right under Kamala’s post (a bunch of nonsense that started “Americans think blah blah …”).
My response: “Americans think you’re a slut.”
What I said is true! And, it’s not as bad as “cunt!”
Within an hour, my account was suspended again for ten days, AND they don’t start the counter UNTIL I FIRST DELETE the tweet!
The truth is, Kamala is STILL a slut.
Twitter offers me, personally, nothing, because it doesn’t understand how to filter, or it just doesn’t like me and never has. And today’s Easter! I’ll leave rising from the dead to the experts, while I leave my mean tweet on Kamala’s post for, I don’t know, as long as I feel like.
At this point I’m guaranteed no-one will see it.
So, I’m off Twitter.
I plan to spend the extra time outdoors!
See, I learned something!
###
Mark Urso
mark@markurso.com
@A_Candle_Lit
My Quora Profile
well, looks like you learned something 🙂 outside is BETTER!
I agree! It’s amazing how much time the computer can steal! 🙂