Facebook AI Censored My Story and I Could Not Share It
The taste of controlled freedom of speech is not fun at all
The problem with Artificial Intelligence these days is that it is extremely artificial. It is stupid.
The algorithm — that is supposed to help social media to play a neutral role during the elections — is actually influencing the elections by censoring content that says things against China.
I wanted to share it with different groups on Facebook, but stupid Facebook AI did not let me post the story to any group.
I tried every method:
- I copied the URL and pasted it in my Facebook post.
- I clicked the share button, on my article, to post the story in my Newsfeed and then used the ‘Share with a group’ option.
- I used the bitly.com to shorten the URL of my post.
- I hit the Twitter share button, on my story, for copying and pasting the shortened link in the Twitter popup box.
I tried everything that I could think.
Then I started thinking about the importance of human beings. If an Artificial Intelligence governed the world, it would definitely destroy everything.
During Android app development, the Google AI shuts down apps and removes apps from the play store for no reason at all. But as soon as the appeal reaches human eyes, the apps are placed back on the store.
Elon Musk has admitted recently, “Excessive automation at Tesla was a mistake. Humans are underrated.” Elon Musk knows that AI can be more dangerous than a nuclear bomb.
Physicist Stephen Hawking was frightened of AI as well. He said the emergence of artificial intelligence could be the “worst event in the history of our civilization.”
Social media, through its AI algorithms, is useful at targeting segments of society. The algorithms know who we are, what we like, where we live, and are amazingly accurate at guessing what we would like to watch next.
Authorities are still investigating facts to determine the responsibility of Cambridge Analytica and those who used the data belonging to 50 million Facebook users to try to influence the result of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the U.K.’s Brexit referendum. If the allegations are true, it shows the power of AI to manipulate society.
AI algorithms are going to become the weapon in the hands of governments in the future. Surveillance through cameras is already happening everywhere. Amazon is providing facial recognition as a service called Rekognition.
China has developed and implemented a complete social system based on AI and cameras; it is called the social credit system.
The social credit system assigns a daily score, to every one of its 1.40 billion citizens, from 0 to 800. People with a high score can get credit on easy terms, their children can get into better educational institutes, and they are considered good citizens. But if you smoke, park your car in the wrong place, jaywalk, buy alcohol beyond a limit, or use unhealthy foods, the social credit system knows it and penalizes you by lowering your score.
But, if the rule of artificial intelligence is going to be similar to what I experienced today, I think Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking were rightly worried about the dangers of AI.
As net-nationalism is becoming popular, anything can happen in the future. All of this discussion gives rise to a question: What if other governments of the world start following the Chinese model?
I wonder if we would start reminiscing about the good old days of Donald Trump’s human government.
All three of these stories were distributed by curators in Writing and Creativity.