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So it finally happened....a rant about "bots".

 So I got banned from Facebook for 24 hours.


I violated community standards because of a post that was somehow taken out of context.   I don't know or really care about the technical stuff, but basically a "bot" that scans the world wide web looking for content that does not meet "community standards" tagged me.  I would be lying if I didn't say I was little bit upset about it; after all there is a lot worse things that are floating around on Facebook than "They are already here, kill them on sight."

A friend of ours had posted a picture of the spotted lanterfly, which is an invasive species. The department of agriculture here in Pennsylvania has requested that you kill them on sight.   He didn't think they were in this part of the state yet and this was his first siting of one..  

The problem that I have is that lots of news stories and articles have already been written about this problem.  Slate magazine even published a bit of a humorous story about the most satisfying ways to kill this little pest.  

So given the evidence, I should not be sitting in Facebook jail right now.  I get it though, all those little bots don't understand context, they just understand that certain words are bad.  If I had used smoosh, step on, exterminate or 1001 other words, I would have been fine.

The limits of technology are easy to understand.  A line of code is searching day and night over billions if not trillions of other lines of code for "hate speech" or "violent speech."  I just happened to get caught up in something that was taken completely out of context because of a single word.  If a human would have reviewed it, there simply would have been no ban.  No jail time.  No issue.

Yes, I do understand that I'm making a proverbial mountain out of a mole hill.   

I understand the need for this technology, I understand the needs for community standards and yes, I even understand that this tech will only improve with time and will, one day, understand context.  It's just not today.

What bothers me is that I've seen worse than this on Facebook and other social media sites.  I do tend to post a lot on political and news driven sites.  Yes, I am a proud "lefty" but I also have no issue calling out bullshit on my side too.  I consider myself to be "anti stupidity."  So, if your stupid, I'll call you out on it.

Sadly, I've seen and dealt with people and posts that are clearly hate filled or downright racist.  They have learned that it's all in how you word something; it's allowed them to escape the little Dalaks guarding the web.  I've even reported a few...only to see them still posting garbage.

OK, rant over.  I just need to vend and I thank you for letting me do so.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled program.  




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Location: Stoneboro, PA 16153, USA

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