THOUGHTS: On Being Shadow Banned, by Adam Lehrer
Adam addresses being totally algorithmically censored and undermined at every turn
I hate to moan, but the relentless censoring of my content across all platforms has left me utterly frustrated and discontented. So many people who are offensive in similar ways to me have had bans and shadow bans lifted during the Elon era. Not me, my accounts across all platforms are essentially unreachable.
Until I can personally get in contact with Elon or someone who works with him, I don’t know what to do. The situation has put me in a profoundly frustrating limbo; right at the edge of real success, and locked me there in perpetuity…
Coupled with the censorship, it appears that my data has been breached and that someone is fucking with me BADLY. I received one of those bizarro “sextortion” E-mails, which wouldn’t have even registered anxiety with me (the worst this person could have was me jacking off or fucking my wife on the couch, neither seems like something I’d be so ashamed that I’d pay money to avoid the humiliation of their revelations over) had it not been for the fact that the E-mail also contained my address, my number, my zip code, fucking everything. ON TOP OF THAT, weird sexually charged objects have been shipped to my home: stripper boots, edible undies, lingerie. All items I did not purchase and all transactions I did not make and all from addresses that are seemingly untraceable.
Between the scam attempts and the censoring, it’s hard to know whether I’m being paranoid OR if I’m actively being conspired against. I don’t know if I’ve completely lost my grip or am simply dejected and going through a weird season. Nevertheless, it was Sigmund Freud himself who said that the paranoid “was never completely wrong” and William S Burroughs himself who said that “the paranoid is someone who can see what’s in front of him.”
It has never been more apparent to me that the information WAR that I often alluded to as a means of honing the aesthetic of this platform is as real as any war there is. I’m being thwarted at the least, and completely psychologically head fucked at the worst.
I can’t tell whether I need to alert the authorities OR if I should just go back to therapy. It’s a time of immense change in my life, a lot of the change I’m happy about. But all this Internet intrigue and darkness is swirling around me, tainting what should otherwise be a joyous time for both the woman that I love and for myself.
At this juncture of my life all I want is enough cash windfall to leave the city and raise a family and free my wife from indentured PR servitude. But, I’m completely unemployable due to the relatively high profile controversy that I’ve cultivated WHILE being censored and held back from fully cashing in on what I’ve built. You see, I’m stuck in between. Blue balled, totally and transcendentally. That’s how algorithmic censorship works. I’m not “banned”, but the numbers don’t even come close to reflecting the audience that I’ve built.
The other day on Red Scare, for instance, Anna tries to cite a tweet of mine. It was a sweet gesture and little things like that can make a huge difference in audience building. And then, Anna realizes, she can’t even find my tweet by searching my profile, which doesn’t even come up in the search bar after typing away the ENTIRE handle.
Maybe this sounds like rank bitching, but yeah, it fucking sucks and makes the effort and hard work feel completely not worth it…
COLLAGE by Adam Lehrer
This all sounds insane, I will support your work to avoid such paranoia, better your work is supported and thus made for the audience that supports you, than for the collective masses.
Can't speak to the shadow banning or anything of that nature, but just want to send you some positive support. This is basically the only blog that I regularly read. We are in desperate need of subversive art and thought of the kind that you are doing. I found your blog through the Ron Morelli interview. I've always resonated with the saying that art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed and that if it is not doing so, at least to some degree, it's not really art. Keep up the great work.