Invisible Hands On The Scale
What's At Stake When Platforms Are The Only Means For Expression
Music Producer and YouTuber Rick Beato has inspired me in different ways, not necessarily limited to musical endeavors. In the past I’ve written about the cost of acquiring skills based on a video he posted regarding the decline in musical ability, and this ties in with my Mighty Humanzee Rule of Engagement #1 “Favor ability over pedigree. Every. Single. Time.” Rick’s love of music and his interviews do more to promote musical discovery than the algorithms of Spotify can achieve. They spark interest that make you want to take action on your own. Yet Rick is being targeted via a Big Tech platform. You’d think that the record labels would appreciate what he does, but their purpose is to no longer promote music and creativity, it’s to extend the subscription services where people are just be fed cheap content. It will be AI content too, because that’s so much cheaper to produce, and the AI won’t talk back to the platform owners and put together connections that human artists often do when they realize that they have been lied to.
The Starfire Codes recently published a special edition of the Scroll where she’s collected all our conversations regarding the difficulties related to our efforts to share our work Substack. The goals of the platform, which should be a consistently functioning technology, are not of importance to the Substack team, and Demi has dedicated a great deal of time documenting her woes and others with subscribers being suddenly and inexplicably removed. This is another symptom of large platforms pursuing goals other than their original purpose. Those who do the work to bring people to the platform are ignored, they’re called paranoid. The issue has been persistent since May, and with the new influx of mainstream voices such as Paul Krugman and Jim Acosta to Substack, who suddenly encounter tremendous growth, it begs the question as to what the true priority is, and whose voice will be allowed.
You may ask how YouTubers issues are related to Substack. In Rick Beato’s case, he risks losing his channel via automated processes where anyone can file a copyright claim, regardless if they hold rights to the material. Rick has hired an attorney to fight these claims full time which, to date, number 4,000. Due to the automated nature of YouTube, he has to respond before a strike is applied. As you can see, YouTube can be easily manipulated to silence creators who make the platforms worthwhile. If those who want to control who says what on that platform, it is an easy mechanism to employ.
Demi points out a different issue, but the end result is one that also silences creators. On Substack a new feature has been implemented that will automatically unsubscribe a recipient if they merely uncheck the receive email notification box. For those using the app, or perhaps who just frequent the sight daily and go to their inbox, electing to not receive an email seems like a natural choice. But why would anyone think that they are unsubscribing by merely ceasing email notifications? Substack refuses to acknowledge the issue. Regardless, the impact of losing subscribers is devasting for for emerging authors. Those with a large audience tend to be very mainstream. The alternative voices who experience this blow to their accounts, to their businesses, and in many cases, their livelihoods suffer the most because their growth is curtailed. And most importantly, it’s a severely damaging impediment for distributing their work. This is direct interference in the author’s and their respect audience relationship. And imagine that, the mainstream voices are not as adversely affected. This issue, unresolved and ignored for so long, does make you wonder what’s at work.
Regardless of the reason, the result is this: ideas are brokered involuntarily. This march to make us all consumers of preselected ideals continues to intensify. We have to persist if we want to continue to be able to express ourselves. That persistence is not to demand our rights - you can never demand your rights, you have to live them. But we need to be smart about how those rights are destroyed. And Globo Corp has a leg up on us. They don’t want the nails on the chalkboard moment that wakes everyone up like Captain Quinn did in Jaws. No old school thinking will be able to point out that artistry was far more vibrant before this massive centralization took control.
The question we have to ask is if a subscription service is there to serve authors and the communities those authors hope to introduce to their work, or is it truly a conscription service that loops in minds, holds them captive and feeds them slop all day in order to study their responses? Or worse, is it like the new version of the book publishing deals that people get where the money is funneled to the publisher to be passed onto the author as payment for their loyalty while they shilled for the establishment? Many have asked that question with the arrival of figures of great notoriety who have had atrocious ratings with mainstream, east abolishment media yet suddenly have huge paid subscribers and their vapid content sucks up all the oxygen in the room.
We ask for the right to compete, that’s all. There is a cost to gaining an audience, and that means skills have to become polished. That’s the rule of the game, and we readily accept that and people’s judgement of my work. I’m not going to violate my own RoE I just cited above. But the invisible social media hand on the scale, yet again, is a sign that we are in a controlled environment, a silo not for thinking but a cage to incubate our reacting to triggers not of our making. That’s coming if we don’t affirm our rights by living them. We can’t demand them, as we possess them already. Does that mean we have a guarantee to be heard? No. But it does mean that Globo Corp communitarian hands that tip the scale to deny us that chance to be heard have to be stopped. We are going to lose everything if we can’t counter their shitty ideals with truth. The globo-corpos will dictate what that truth is and our very perception if their platforms will be the only means of communication, publishing and expression. We can go offline, but they will convince enough to stop us from dissenting. I don’t think we can ignore them, as much as I say nearly every day reduce the digital and embrace the analog to recover your health and free will. Covid proved that many were very willing to give up their own freedom for the ability to take ours away. Those who break out of group think will be silenced, and the masses to accomplish that are being groomed.
The YouTuber El Estepario is a phenomenal drummer, and makes great videos that are hugely entertaining. But you’ll see his support for Rick Beato comes from the recognition that there are interests adverse to our expression, to anyone with ability who wants to work hard. Much of what he says in regard to Rick Beato’s situation on YouTube and how he has needed an attorney to combat the strikes against his channel is applicable to what Demi has assembled based on our experience on Substack.
I didn’t sit down to write this today, I have a backlog that I was going to take a crack at whittling down, but too many things have converged today that I felt couldn’t be ignored. Freewill is under assault at an ever greater rate, AI is that weapon. For an old school software dev like me, I still see AI as a useful tool in situations, but it’s not presented as that. It is, like the Big Tech platforms, is the all encompassing next “phase of evolution” that will eliminate your need to exert any effort. It is a superior companion. Like the Big Tech platforms which have replaced much of our social interaction and trap us from moments like this below, AI is going to ensnare and then shutter our creativity. Perhaps not my generation but my kids in Gen Z and Alpha, they are at risk because like the hands on the scale that prevent people from discovering their own sources of value and education, AI will deny them the chance to start developing their own skills. But Google and the Tech Bros have other plans.
“Artificial intelligence would be the ultimate version of Google. The ultimate search engine that would understand everything on the web. It would understand exactly what you wanted, and it would give you the right thing. We’re nowhere near doing that now. However, we can get incrementally closer to that, and that is basically what we work on.”
—Larry Page
That’s the plot. AGI or not, the erosion of our skills and ability to expresses ourselves will evaporate if we are too consumed with frivolity to let it come to pass. And certainly we won’t be in the driver seat of there are Big Tech intermediaries who ignore us while we bring our gifts to these platforms that only benefit who they chose.
Now before I leave the impression yet again that I am a Luddite and all is lost, I have to include this from El Estepario, because it is not only the instantiation of ability over pedigree, it’s one of the reasons why creativity and hard work is one the primary reasons that the digital can be and should be used to share things of joy. It’s been playing in the background as I wrote this. You don’t get more analog than sitting at drum kit. I did that in high school. A band nerd knows.
The dude is primarily a speed metal drummer, yet some of his best groves are from pop music, such as Michael Jackson as shown in this this short. Damn this what people want - unfettered right to express themselves via their hard work. How is this not infectious? It is analog, presented via the digital. We have to fight to preserve our voice. We must.
Beato is being screwed hard by that label. And the kicker, most musicians respect him. The labels don't give a shit about that though. Just like here in Substack, no one in the leadership cares about those of us who have been here since the beginning. They don't even include us in their algorithms anymore.
What makes these problems doubly frustrating is that you cannot even complain about the problem. Your complaints are suppressed as well. You can't reach others affected by these issues either as we are all isolated by the invisible hands.