24 Comments
User's avatar
Sharon's avatar

The Zuckerbots don't let Canadians post any news links or even see any news from ANYWHERE in the world. Canadian legislation requires Facebook to compensate Canadian media for any CANADIAN news posted on Facebook. Zuck refuses, although he has agreed to compensate media in Australia and a couple of other countries. Google, on the other hand, has agreed to pay Canadian news publishers $100 million a year for the next 5 years.

Expand full comment
Barb Z.'s avatar

I got a post denied by FB for hate speech. What was I posting about? A flower with the common name Campion. WTF! I edited the post, after a few trys at restructuring it, and finally used the Latin name, Lychnis coronaria. FB was okay with that. 🤷‍♀️😠

Expand full comment
Deb Vitkova's avatar

Is campion the sameflower as bouncing bet?

Expand full comment
Barb Z.'s avatar

My grumpy comment lacked detail. It is Rose Campion. Some prefer Dusty Miller. In the UK it is called Lychnis coronaria but in these parts it's Silene coronaria. In either case it is a fabulous, grow anywhere plant.

Expand full comment
Susanna J. Sturgis's avatar

Aha! Dusty Miller I know. It hangs out at the beach with Rosa Rugosa!

Expand full comment
Deb Vitkova's avatar

Thank you.

Expand full comment
Susanna J. Sturgis's avatar

I looked it up and it doesn't seem so: they come from different families. Bouncing bet (which has other common names) is Saponaria officinalis. Campion (which has a number of varieties) belongs to the genus Silene and is part of the carnation family. Info mostly from Wikipedia, surprise, surprise!

Expand full comment
~Shadowcloud~'s avatar

(tongue in cheek) FB is still a thing?

Can't imagine Joyce being censored by any person or chatbot. Also, can't imagine Joyce's internal voice after anything she writes or says is struck. Love to hear it, though, then re-hear a few times. While am at it, love to hear Joyce's unabridged take on Trump. Would feed the chicken for a week in exchange for Joyce's sans filter. What I wouldn't want to hear, is an ass-chewing from her to me. Would join the chickens inside the coop

Expand full comment
Susanna J. Sturgis's avatar

You could do worse than being sent to that coop. It was built earlier this year and is very impressive. Might be a little crowded though, with a hooman in it. <g>

Expand full comment
~Shadowcloud~'s avatar

Am a Joyce fanboy for many reasons. Her balance of home life w/academia and w/teevee and social media is ideal. Her love of animals and their love of her shines through. Of course, having a big dufus GSD is a huge plus.

Expand full comment
Susanna J. Sturgis's avatar

The doggos clearly approved this message!

Expand full comment
~Shadowcloud~'s avatar

The balance of which I speak includes the entire Sisters-In-Law group, in life and law. Individually and collectively, they are a far better listen than their male counterparts. Too many male legal eagles bring their implicit and explicit bias w/them. Suggest they add more furry and feathered friends to their home lives.

Expand full comment
Deb Vitkova's avatar

👍🏼

Expand full comment
daien | nyc's avatar

Might the algorithm place a silent limit on the number of consecutive caps allowed? (Being a FB nonmember has advantages like no such headaches.)

Expand full comment
Susanna J. Sturgis's avatar

Interesting idea. I'm not convinced that the algorithms can "read" JPGs and PNGs, which is what I think that Trump excerpt was. Come to think of it, the fact that a chunk of the post couldn't be detected might have triggered the algorithm. My share of this post shows a significant portion of the Trump screed and it hasn't been messed with.

Expand full comment
daien | nyc's avatar

If the img file isn't scanned and machine-read, the algorithm system seems pointless. You could post the ugliest of darkweb stuff in daylight. A crude system to exclude crude content.

Expand full comment
Susanna J. Sturgis's avatar

I've got to learn more about how the algorithms work. So much of the stuff on Facebook and other social media consists of images, and that includes plenty of disgusting stuff. I've been thinking primarily of words, because that's what I and people I know have been dinged for.

Expand full comment
daien | nyc's avatar

Do you know how to program? If not, learning the fundamentals of any given programming language would beat any other way to find out how algorithms work. Programming is demanding, the rewards are dazzling.

Expand full comment
Susanna J. Sturgis's avatar

No. I've dabbled in writing Word macros but that's it. I've long been intrigued by the prospect, however. If I hadn't been so fascinated by English and history as a young person, I might have gone on in math. I liked it and was good at it.

Expand full comment
daien | nyc's avatar

Right—I got scary good at writing XPL, xyWrite's internal scripting language, before graduating to C, then the big kids' compiled language. Unless you want to design an operating system, while some elementary algebra can come in handy, math is incidental. Practical purpose programming is all about logic. If I were a kid now, no question i'd dive into it as a career. Huge mistake not to first spend a few years learning some other field in depth. I could extend that to the Silicon Valley bros, who know only computers, not life.

Expand full comment
Terri Green's avatar

Thanks for writing this. I have been totally stumped trying to figure out how Joyce’s essay violated any “community standards”!

The “Truth Social” heading on his rant might be what caught the bot’s eye.

Expand full comment
Yehawes (VA)'s avatar

I wouldn't know so sheer speculation, but if AI can't "read" visual images then I'd wonder how it's stealing artists' and photographers' work to generate those six fingered "pictures" of made up composite people. It seems like it must be able to do so?

Expand full comment
Yehawes (VA)'s avatar

There are two meanings to "oversight" so either one can apply at any given moment. It's not so great BTW if the comments don't get any "oversight" in the sense of being checked because quite often the comments are some of the worst poison on there.

Expand full comment