Ex Robin Hood (Now Works for the King)

It happened out of the blue… I’m neither the first nor the last to be on the receiving end of the algorithms, for no particular reason.

Since when do you need a smartphone to access social media? And how does that prove you're not a bot anyway? As far as I know, ‘bot farms’ mainly operate on social zoos using SIM cards, don’t they?

After digging around on Reddit, I discovered that the so-called verification process via the X app requires a facial scan or a fingerprint scan, which, incidentally, still fails to unlock the accounts of thousands of people around the world.

As far as I’m concerned, going along with these demands is out of the question. They make social media virtually essential for content creators to gain visibility, and then they hold you to ransom over your biometric data. It’s the well-honed ‘foot-in-the-door’ technique.

And as you need to be able to access your account in order to delete it, I had to invoke Article 17 (on the right to be forgotten) and Article 12 (on the transparency of information and communications and the procedures for exercising data subjects’ rights) of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) to request the complete deletion of my account and my data on X.

Ultimately, it may well be a blessing in disguise, given the high level of toxicity on X, where everyone twists and takes facts out of context to make them fit their ideology (or propaganda) rather than reality, which is usually much more nuanced and rarely black and white. That, in fact, is the whole art of decontextualisation: justifying extremes in order to generate as much friction as possible and maximise loosh production.

And it’s not as if it made much difference to the visibility of my work. Whether here or elsewhere.

Nowadays, on major platforms such as Facebook, the organic (unpaid) reach of a post is less than 5%. In other words, if you have 100 followers, the algorithm will only show it to 4 or 5 people.

This explains why quantity and pre-packaged thinking prevail over quality and authenticity. Most social media users are unwilling to make the mental effort needed to engage in deconstruction and analysis whilst scrolling through their feed. Whereas artificial emotional triggers that flatter cognitive biases drive clicks and thus more ‘available brain time’ to serve ads. Put simply, on social media, it’s only quantity that brings in the money. Not quality.

That said, I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. Long before personal computers and the internet even existed. As a university student, I would publish an international music fanzine—the paper-based precursor to blogs—produced with a simple typewriter, a pair of scissors and some glue. My printing and postage costs were covered by subscriptions, and any remaining copies were sold through independent record shops and by word of mouth. All the money was reinvested in producing my fanzine, and on top of that, I was able to meet my readers in real life.

In other words, seeing the numbers of my imaginary followers and ‘friends’ rack up more and more zeros is absolutely not what I’m after. They don’t know me from Adam and, let’s be honest, most are only looking to boost their own visibility rather than read what I write. I'm happy to leave this false sense of glory and recognition to all the great thinkers by proxy and I'm so pleased to have a few but genuine readers who read my articles by choice, rather than because an algorithm or an influencer has suggested they do so. A huge thank you to this handful of ‘explorers’ of the lesser-travelled paths for spreading the word and supporting my work.

Popularity is as fleeting as the wave it rides. Authenticity, on the other hand, is rooted in the depths, where the noise from the surface can no longer be heard.

© La Pensine Mutine. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited.

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