It was Friday. I love Friday's. Friday is the start of the weekend and I can't repress my teenage joy at the thought of beer soaked evenings in the cold winter of a Scottish Spring.
There was only one pesky problem.
Work.
I wasn't even half way through the day and it was stretching out before me. A sea of calls with various parsnip eaters and other such diddies.
One such diddy was holding court in the call I was currently on.
We were discussing YouTube and the censoring of stupid conspiracy theories.
It was a Friday after all.
The thing is though. They use an algorithm to hide this kind of stuff and make it less popular.
Spouted Diddy-Ride-Manchego, one of my colleagues who was forever sending the team links to covered up, never seen before UFO videos. The particular daft video he was bleating about was one in which a UFO was being chased around the sky with a laser pointer.
Are you sure its "the algorithm" and not just that the videos don't get many views because they are fucking nonsense?
I said, lazily scratching my left Jeffrey whilst I dreamed of being out in the sun, running free through a field of barley with a beer in each hand and the wind in my hair.
It's nothing to do with the perceived quality of the content and has everything to do with the powers-that-be wanting to stop this kind of information leaking to the public. It is deplatforming plain and simple.
Diddy-Ride-Manchego moved closer to his camera as if we were doing a tango and it was time to cup one of my bum cheeks and do a twirl.
Deplatforming?? I think you mean shadow-banning?
Having lived on Hive for more years than I cared to count, I was sadly familiar with internet terms that real people should never have to bother their arse with.
I think I know what I am saying. They are blocking the content from showing up in searches and not making it easy to find. That is why this video with the laser pointer and the UFO isn't getting the views it should be.
Diddy-Ride-Manchego tried to look pleased and grimly serious at the same time, like a dog licking its balls and discovering half a Snickers tucked under its left nut and trying not to let the other dogs to see.
It's nothing to do with shadow banning, deplatforming or even "The Algorithm." Its just that these videos are bollocks and fake and the only people that believe them are dafties.
Said I, shaking my head at the folly of breast-riding UFO nuts everywhere.
I'm not a daftie?
Sputtered Diddy-Ride-Manchego indignantly.
I frowned and chewed the end of my pen before speaking.
Well... The only people I see bleating about an algorithm tend to be dafties. I'm just saying.
I popped up the meeting menu and selected Diddy-Ride-Manchego and kicked him out of the call.
Oh, he seems to have dropped off?
I looked at the other office-munters on screen and shrugged my shoulders.
It must have been The Algorithm.
