In feudal Japan, a period lasting around 700 years, a samurai warrior who found himself without master, family or cause was called ronin. The term could equally apply to an individual or the individual’s status.
In some cases it was a punishment intended to cause shame and embarrassment. The ronin’s name and all record of him was erased, his name was never again spoken, and in some cases people were forbidden from even speaking with him. It could be decreed for failure, betrayal or because the samurai dissented.
While I have never been a samurai, in the world of social media, I am ronin.
I do not know exactly why I was kicked off the world’s largest platform a few weeks ago. As is often the case, I was unable to find out, since the appeals form does not always give you a specific standard that was violated. Sometimes the artificial intelligence (AI) in charge will remove a comment, warn you about it, or suggest you might have made a mistake.
Sometimes, however, you are simply stricken with no explanation, left to wander the vast digital landscape without a home or a voice.
I did receive one message that I may or may not receive a message by a certain date, but I never received the email said AI was sending, and since I was deleted, I couldn’t tell them I never received the aforementioned email.
It wasn’t the first time I had been banned, or even deleted. This particular time, however, I was caught unawares and unprepared. I was thrown out of the digital castle, sent wandering the wilderness seeking strangers who I hoped would acknowledge my presence. I was on the verge of being a madman roaming the streets with a printout of a picture of a cute puppy and a cute kitten, seeking strangers of whom I would demand, “Do you like this? DO YOU LIKE THIS?”
No, I was not as far gone as the great Dave Barry described above. It was more of an inconvenience than anything.
I realized how many telephone numbers I lacked for people with whom I communicate almost daily. Folks with whom I share mutual interests in hobbies, animals, Bible study, current events, humor, history – I was cut off from them. I was shut away from friends in other countries, where time zones and telephone rates make communications difficult. And my contacts for animal rescue were almost entirely eliminated, leading to several very angry folks who needed my help, but had no idea how to contact me. Of course, outside of folks who actually had my telephone number, most folks had no idea what happened. It blocked us from being able to at least attend church online on those Sundays when I can’t physically get to the church building for worship.
It amazed me, when I thought about it, how I had become entirely too reliant on the ease of social media to communicate. It worried me, honestly.
I had the contacts for my core circle, of course: relatives and chosen family, the most important work numbers, that type of thing. I had saved most of my pictures, but those shared by friends were now ripped from the digital album, never to be seen again. Pictures of gatherings, videos of concerts by kids I consider family, a friend’s homegoing service, the odd funny picture — gone. I’d saved many, having previously been purged, and now the evidence of those memories are erased because a computer decided I was unworthy.
Being thrown out seriously affected my business, but there are ways around such roadblocks.
I wasn’t completely in the gulag. Indeed, I had several folks who actually called to see if I was still alive, or hospitalized. I found some of my friends and acquaintances when I migrated to another popular platform, where I don’t have to worry about getting in trouble for expressing an opinion that might hurt someone else’s feelings, where it’s harder for cowards to bully people whose courage extends only as far as an anonymous keyboard.
As frustrating as it has been, especially with a computer being judge, jury and executioner, the whole experience has been eyeopening. True, I do not think the decision was fair, especially since the company didn’t fulfill its end of the bargain, but it’s a private company, which has every right to reject someone if its wildly profitable computer programs say someone should be rejected. What little bit of revenue produced from selling my personal information or throwing advertising across my screen won’t make any difference in their bottom line. I’m just another ant. The free market is sometimes rather Darwinian.
I strongly suspect my banishment was caused from sharing a post which had been shared by others on the same platform, but like the one speeder in an Interstate pack who gets pulled for a ticket, I was unlucky. It might have been because of someone with an axe to grind, since anonymous, unspecific complaints are easy to make. I might well have been because of my conservative comments (which had been pushed down on newsfeeds, again without warning). It might even have been from something posted years ago, since the artificial intelligence regularly audits profiles for things that humans might have missed, back when humans mattered. The owner of that particular platform has admitted to working with the government to censor some information and individuals. While I doubt I am that important, I’m more sympathetic to those who would be quashed than those who appointed themselves in charge of saying who can be part of their town square, and do the quashing.
Being thrust back into the Dark Ages of the early 2000s has been refreshing in some ways. Texts and emails still flow, of course. When folks can’t impulsively send you a direct message, you get more telephone calls, which are decidedly more human.
Critics have to stop and breathe before they jump down your throat, since a phone call forces them to actually speak and potentially be accountable without being able to hit the “block” button. It’s harder to ignore a telephone call or even a text. One doesn’t have to immediately log on when someone says that someone said or did something funny, idiotic, or mean.
I find myself wasting less time, and looking somewhere other than a screen. In many ways, it’s altogether pleasant. The other platform doesn’t make it easy to waste away an hour or two without realizing that one has done so, thus missing a sunset or a puppy rolling in the grass or a meaningful conversation with a person sitting across the table.
I’m sure I’ll eventually end up back on that other platform, but I hope I approach it differently this time. I didn’t take it that seriously before, but now that I have realized it’s not so bad being a pariah, I hope I’ll take more time to enjoy things that really matter.
I am ronin. And it isn’t really a bad thing.
