Category: Commentary

My tweet about how X suppresses content critical of its policies got flagged for “Hateful Conduct” within seven seconds of posting. The satire just writes itself at this point.

The problem with my account isn’t that my content sucks and people aren’t interested in it or me. The problem is the algorithm is actively PREVENTING my content from being shown to my audience AT ALL (even WITH Premium). A post with 20%+ engagement only hitting 1/170 of my followers’ eyeballs over the span of its first hour isn’t “people don’t like you.” It’s not the time of day I posted it. It’s not if it had a fucking image (it did). That’s not just “the algorithm didn’t favor this post”—it’s functionally impossible and mathematically absurd under normal distribution. It’s “@X has nuked your account and salted the earth with its ashes.” Furthermore, many followers have reported they don’t see my posts organically in their feed and even my replies get hidden from conversations. Even with strong engagement I’m not just buried in the For You algorithm. I’m not even there to begin with. Sometimes my posts don’t even show up in my own damn timeline. The particularly fucked part is there’s no meaningful appeal process to @XEng for whatever chicanery got me shadowbanned and @premium support is worse than useless. They deny it’s happening, won’t tell me why I’m suppressed, gaslight me me about my engagement rates (hello, I have the analytics RIGHT FUCKING HERE), and won’t explain what would fix it. So no, I’m not whining about low engagement. I’m pissed about algorithmic suppression applied to the point that this account, which I’m paying for, is functionally dead. It’s not just algorithmic chicanery. It’s fraud.

James Cameron’s Avatar franchise has already made several billion dollars across three films, built stunning worlds at unprecedented scale, and delivered emotionally resonant stories about family, loss, and cultural identity. The character work—Neytiri’s feral grief, Varang’s traumatic rejection of spiritual dogma, Jake navigating life as a cultural traitor—demonstrates genuine moral complexity. Meanwhile, the meta-conflict underpinning the entire franchise remains stubbornly, frustratingly shallow. Three films deep, Cameron still isn’t asking the hard question his own setup demands.

I have a magical rented blue checkmark that’s advertised to grant “enhanced visibility.” In mid-October, my reach on Twitter dropped 75% overnight and never recovered. My engagement rate? Running an order of magnitude over platform average—exceptional by any measure. When I contacted Premium support with comprehensive data, charts, and systematic elimination of alternative explanations, they ignored everything I’d said and replied with a list of canned social media network tips. When pressed, they regretted to inform me users just don’t find my demonstrably engaging content all that “interesting.” Then deflected to completely unrelated revenue sharing calculations I’d never asked for. Then closed my ticket and handed me off to Grok, who helpfully suggested I use more hashtags. Someday I’ll look back on this and have a good laugh.

Traditional publishers are negotiating AI training deals worth hundreds of millions and establishing consent-based licensing standards. Meanwhile, Amazon has made no public statement about whether it can—or will—use the millions of books on Kindle Direct Publishing for the same purpose. The silence matters because every indie author using KDP has granted Amazon irrevocable rights under terms that predate AI technology. Unlike traditionally published authors who can negotiate or decline licensing deals, indie authors have already agreed to terms they can’t modify, can’t escape, and which Amazon has never clarified regarding AI training.​​​​​​​​​​​​

On Friday, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association announced new Nebula Awards rules allowing some AI-assisted works to compete. By evening—after member outrage and two emergency board votes—they’d reversed course entirely, banning any LLM use whatsoever. The result? Policy written by people who think large language models are “assemblers of stolen work,” creating bright-line rules where boundaries fundamentally don’t exist, protecting the genre’s most prestigious award from a threat that doesn’t actually exist. This is what happens when technical illiteracy meets moral panic.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

I left the Mormon church after serving a two-year mission—seven generations of family legacy abandoned because I couldn’t ignore the evidence. I became an atheist. For seven years, the universe was just matter and energy until entropy wins. Then one secular Christmas, I gave myself permission to hope the Nativity might be true. Not because I had new evidence—simply because I wanted to live in a universe where Love became incarnate to share human suffering. Fourteen years after leaving Mormonism, after studying philosophy, theology, and church history with the same rigor that made me leave, I was baptized Catholic. It wasn’t certainty. It was hope sustained by intellectual honesty. This is what I believe about faith, doubt, and the courage to follow truth wherever it leads.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​