South Korea: Not Just Smart Hyundai Venues. It Is Also AI Censoring and Pre-Censoring
June 8, 2026
![green-dino_thumb_thumb[3]](https://www.arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/green-dino_thumb_thumb3.gif "green-dino_thumb_thumb[3]")
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I drive a super sexy blue Hyundai Venue. When I drive by an old age horn, the babes wave at me from their walkers and wheelchairs. I know I am cool. My Venue is smart. It beeps when I am in a parking space. It beeps and jerks the wheel when I am navigating roads under construction. Once in a while, the car beeps, flashes a red light, and automatically applies the brakes when I am creeping along in a traffic jam. Yep, South Korea has that smart software nailed.
Pre-censorship and real-time censorship appear to deliver some surprises to a small online publishing firm in South Korea. But AI is good enough, right MidJourney?
The country is now pioneering in a field translated for me by a “free” online translation service: Pre-censoring. I read about this nifty smart software sitting in my Venue as the beeps warned me of some impending disaster. The article is titled in this crystal clear way: “Even If You Upload an Image, Is It Pre-Censored? The Background of the Confrontation of Pros and Cons.” According to the free translation service the write contains this statement, and I quote:
The policy of pre-censoring images posted to the domestic Internet community with artificial intelligence (AI) has also become visible. Public opinion is divided between the need for a social safety net and the violation of freedom of expression.
The amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act, called the Prevention of N-Bang Act, came into effect in 2021. The structure monitors and responds in advance to content uploaded to SNS, messengers, and communities using AI. Until now, it had been limited to video files, but confusion soon grew as it became known that image files were also included in management.
I like the “N-Bang” bound phrase. Usually rules and regulations are less… suggestive. Confused. I poked around and located this article: “South Korean Online Communities Will Need to Scan Every Images with AI Censorship Tools.” The main idea seems to me, if the translation is sort of correct, is:
Due to recent regulation changes… the South Korean government is requiring internet communities and forum owners to scan every user uploaded images and videos on their website, by AI. The hardware to run these AI models are also not provided by government, website owners have to buy datacenter grade Nvidia GPUs by themselves, putting financial pressure to small businesses and forums. Websites will need to implement these hardware and software features, starting immediately from July 1st, [2026]
Several observations seem warranted:
- Will the smart software perform in a manner similar to that in my Hyundai Venue: False beeps, erroneous beeps, and beeps from out of nowhere? (Hey, I’m parked with the motor running, and my Venue just beeped. Because the beeps are the same frequency, I am not sure what the problem is. I will lock my doors.
- AI systems appear to have a few issues; for example, the systems hallucinate. Has South Korea figured out how to make smart software not output erroneous information; for example, an image posted on social media of a father splashing in a pool with his two young children? I am confident that some hallucinations will occur; for example, child cruelty, attempted murder by drowning, an image destined for a CSAM site on a Dark Web service, etc. But I assume South Korea’s AI does not have this problem.
- The pre-processing and the real-time processing computational loads are zero problemo for those in the online delivery chain. We checked a single image online using five “smart” image identification services. It took about 15 minutes to get results in our “image horserace.” I assume that South Korea has engineered a workflow that does add time and cost to an online service that includes images.
Net net: I think the idea of pre- and real-time image filtering is interesting. Zipping through still images, video files, and any other included file type is no problem. Hey, now I am backing out of my parking space. My Hyundai Venue is beeping with false positives. The dog park is empty now, but the Venue is smart. It is protecting me from … something.
Stephen E Arnold, June 8, 2026
The New Dark Ages: A Recent Example
May 29, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
We are now entering the new Dark Ages. I see more posts about stupidism. Authors range from teachers in grade school, middle school, and high school. There are posts by recent college graduates about the impact of AI on college students. College professors grumble about students while some of that cohort use AI to crank out junk research. ArXiv has bluntly said that its editorial process will ban those who submit AI research slop. I like to toss in reminders that the former head of the Harvard ethic department resigned over allegations of recycling other people’s work. Several years ago the president of Stanford University resigned. Yep, intellectual short cuts. But that’s just a function of de-emphasis on reading, writing, and arithmetic and the 24×7 distraction datasphere. How can anyone think with the vivid “noise” pulsing through simple activities like walking. Who walks without a mobile device, a smart watch, ear buds, smart glasses, and a tracking beacon OR one of these gizmos. The Dark Ages thrive on stupidism.
Thanks, Midjourney. Art from your life experience I assume.
The other driver of the Dark Ages is ill-considered decisions. There are others, but I want to highlight one small example. The loss of a small firm’s data, reports, and models seems trivial. You can read the case example in “Disney Erased FiveThirtyEight.” Yep, the mouse is eager to contribute to stupidism.
The write up says:
It’s common to read things like: “what happens on the Internet stays on the Internet”, the notion being that you can never escape your digital past. But this isn’t really true. A Pew study of a random sample of Internet links conducted in October 2023 found significant “link rot”: almost 40 percent of links that had been active 10 years earlier were broken. And that’s probably an underestimate: the study was based on the Common Crawl web archive (the same one that AI labs use to train their models), which is quite comprehensive but probably contains some bias toward more prominent sites. Another study by ahrefs found a two-thirds attrition rate for web links after 11 years.
Online information is not a library filled with non-digital information objects. Sure, the mythical wonders of the library of Alexandria burned, but copies of some of the information persisted. Knowledge regained some traction, and the voids are unknown. But knowledge survived. As the quote makes clear, some information in digital form just goes away. A government agency takes down public information about MIC or LOCAs. A big company decides to get out of a business and tells the system administrator to take down some content. A careless programmer allows an AI agent to nuke a database. A less careless bad actor penetrates a systems created by a careless developer and vaporizes data. Fungible information artefacts can persist. The digital stuff just goes away.
The write up reports:
ABC finally fully shut down FiveThirtyEight in March 2025, 11 years after its debut at Disney. Eleven years is a long time in the media business, and the site covered one of the most tumultuous periods in American political history with its unique blend of analytics, brutal honesty and irreverence. It would be nice if that work could be preserved for the public record. I don’t know what plans Disney has for FiveThirtyEight, if any. But I did approach Disney a year or two ago, through my agent, about acquiring the remaining IP. I’m probably the logical high bidder, though the value is rapidly depreciating as what’s left of the site falls into disrepair. At a minimum, we’d restore the archive, with prominent links to Silver Bulletin. We were told to basically get lost: ABC was annoyed with my critical public comments about their management of FiveThirtyEight. It apparently wasn’t a long conversation, so I don’t have a lot more color to report than that.
I urge you to read the full essay. I do want to focus on my thesis of the new Dark Ages.
First, this case example exists within the stupidism datasphere; that is, business decisions, the application of math to certain topics, and the push for maximum returns (psychological, market share, monetary) results in the decision to delete information or remove it from access.
Second, the impact of stupidism is that it diffuses like spilling royal blue ink on a white sheet. The impacts goes in multiple dimensions and ruins things one assumed would be okay. Hey, it’s just a tiny spill. Sometimes not.
Third, as stupidism becomes institutionalized, working out of the Dark Ages takes time. The problem is that time today has been compressed. Centuries ago humanity had, well, centuries. Today, humanity may have less time. When there is zero way to see what has preceded and been verified multiple times, folks are flying bling and don’t know.
I like phrases like the Jazz Age. I wish I could think of a snappy way of saying, “Yep, it is the Age of stupidism.” I can’t. I will stick with new Dark Ages and stupidism.
Stephen E Arnold, May 29, 2026
UK Censorship: No Problem Getting Toad in the Hole, Mr. Musk
May 18, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Elon Musk will be able to visit Stonehenge. No problemo. Why? According to “X Agrees to Crack Down on Illegal Hate and Terror Content in the UK,”
British online safety regulator Ofcom says it has accepted new commitments from X that aim to better protect UK users from seeing illegal hate and terror content on the platform. Under the agreement announced today, X says it will withhold access in the UK to accounts reported posting illegal terrorist content and determined to be operated by UK terror groups and assess “at least 85 percent” of terror and hate speech reported by users “within a maximum of 48 hours.”
Let’s assume that Elon Musk is indeed cooperating with a foreign government. The number “85 percent” is interesting. Typically filtering for problematic content uses a variety of techniques. In my Dark Web lecture, I pointed out that different words were used to avoid triggering automated filtering systems. I will not provide an example for CSAM, but I will provide an example for a potent type of drug. The words required to locate the offending content, as I demonstrated three weeks ago to about 180 cyber professionals, are “Girl Scout Cookies.”
Toad in the hole in a British pub is much more tasty that the food in the Monster Mansion aka HMP Wakefield. Thanks, Midjourney. Good enough.
Therefore, if the words do not map to the improper content, topic, product, or service, filtering systems may miss what’s bad. That means that even smart software has to be fed current terms used to sidestep blocks.
How does a company like Grok identify some that is “illegal hate and terror content”? One answer is that, Grok’s systems are so darned capable, they can hit at least 85 percent bull’s eyes. Another answer is, “Grok will have to set up some sort of post AI or post automated filtering system that makes use of humans. A third answer is, “Just do the best we can and claim 85 percent or higher accuracy.”
There may be other “answers,” but identifying and blocking is easier said that done. Let’s think about other challenges censorship systems face. Here are a few thought starters:
- For the bean counters. Any additional system adds costs. Since the problems in filtering are not known until we operate such a system, determine if it works, test options, and deploy the most effective, the costs are unknown. At this point, the bean counter fades from green to blanched almond white. Yep, filtering is expensive. Almost any option is expensive.
- For the human. Burn out awaits. Ask anyone involved in identification of problematic content if they like their job. Get back to me with your findings. I know my findings. Most people can guess an answer.
- For the programmer who is told, “Fix up a system.” The task is a big one. The core difficulty is the terminology shifts. A system of identifying a new proxy term, linking it with an offense, and then slipstreaming that fix into the constant flow of content will keep the programmer busy. I am not sure Claude, Gemini, or other AI enabled programming systems can crack this problem to hit the 85 percent figure. If you don’t agree, that’s okay. I am a dinobaby and usually off base.
Another angle I thought about this question, “Why would Mr. Musk cooperate with authorities in the UK and blow off the French judiciary?” My view is that Mr. Musk is willing to take action related to “illegal terrorist and hate speech.” He is less eager to take action against the content which has violated French law. Could this cooperation with the UK authorities reveal something about Mr. Musk’s content perceptions?
I will try to watch for more information about Mr. Musk’s 85 percent number. Based on my past experience with filtering systems, that’s a high mark. It is one that even human-centric censorship procedures struggle to meet. One thing is certain. Mr. Musk will be able to visit the UK at least until the first score results are made known. France is probably geared up to arrest him if he sets foot where France has jurisdiction.
Stephen E Arnold, May 18, 2026
The EU: Another Government Does Some Fancy Dancing
April 30, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold. I find it interesting that AI detectors identify my writing style as AI output. I suppose I should be flattered, but I just don’t care.
The European Union loves to fine American companies. I suppose if I could ring up some notional money, publicize my stance against American overreach, and get elected — I would do some fancy dancing.
I read an article or exposé published by Investigate Europe. “How Big Tech Wrote Secrecy into EU Law to Hide Data Centers Environmental Toll” states:
Microsoft and DigitalEurope, a lobby group whose members include Amazon, Google and Meta, secured a secrecy provision in EU law to block public access to critical information on data centers’ environmental impact, Investigate Europe can reveal.
What’s a Digital Europe? My recollection is that it consists of more than 100 high-tech outfits and what are called “national trade associations.” I interpret this phrase to mean “soft advocates” for big technology.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
Investigate Europe figured out that big AI tech outfits or what I call BAITs worked hard to make sure that the environmental impact of large-scale data centers was not widely known, disseminated, talked about, or provided to citizen groups willing to carry signs. No big surprise to me. Investigate Europe, on the other hand, appears to have be in a cloud of unknowing. I find that darned interesting.
The write up reports:
With the EU set to triple its data center capacity in the next five years, the European Commission started collecting key metrics like energy efficiency and water consumption from facilities. However, information on individual facilities’ footprint is kept secret, after industry pushed to amend the 2024 legislation to classify it as confidential and commercially sensitive.
This strikes me as standard operational practices for BAIT-type outfits. Now folks are worried that bad things will come about when the data centers power up. The write up says:
Europe is building data centers at break-neck speed, with €176 billion in investment expected over the next five years. The rush has triggered widespread concerns about pollution and intense energy use as well as impacts on communities and natural habitats.
Let’s not forget consumer impacts like “power shaping.” Someone’s sensitive electronic devices, including a few with uninterruptable power supplies or back up generators, may be tested. Failures mean that someone might hear, “Daddy, my mobile is not charging.”
Who crafted the confidentiality wordage? I don’t know, but it seems as if some of the Microsofties played a role. The report offers this factoid as a quote from Bram Vranken at the Corporate Europe Observatory, an NGO in Brussels:
“The fact that the Commission copy-pasted a Microsoft amendment is shocking,” Vranken said. “Who does the Commission really represent: Big Tech or the public interest?”
My answer to this question is that dolphins, herring, and black stork are probably not the EU’s primary concern when it comes to data centers.
Investigate Europe is working with other publishing outfits to pass the word that fancy dancing has taken place. More hoe-downs are likely to be held to make sure that power, emissions, noise, and assorted infrastructure projects are kept under wraps.
This is not a surprise.
Stephen E Arnold, April 29, 2026
Australia and Its Stimulation of Teen Creativity
April 22, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold. Did you know that the freedom loving cyclist at BearBlog thinks my essays are generated by AI. Censorship is okay, right?
One could be critical and say, “Australia’s social ban is not working.” Then one could say, “Australian teens have found workarounds, thus demonstrating one way to spark innovation.”
According to The Guardian in “Australia’s Teen Social Media Ban Is A Flop. But There’s No Joy In ‘I Told You So,’” seven in ten teens still remain on social media platforms. I think that is of 100 young people, only 30 have just given up on the addictive platforms.
The eSafety report also noted that there hasn’t been any major changes to cyberbullying or image-based abuse reported by children. The ban was supposed to keep kids safe from the potential harms that come with social media: the aforementioned bullying, exploitation by pedophiles and other abusers, and impaired brain development.
Some experts predicted the ban wasn’t going to work. Australia’s eSafety commissioner had doubts and the Australian government knew there was lack of evidence that a ban would deliver the results the government wanted. Requisite legislation was passed. The write up said:
“The fallback argument for the social media ban is that it’s better than nothing. But with results like these, it may be worse than nothing, given it potentially creates new problems. Children will remain online with arguably less supervision and support, new privacy and digital security vulnerabilities seem to have appeared and the worst aspects of social media lay largely unaddressed.”
The Australian government seems to be probing the BAIT outfits (big AI tech and social media firms) to verify that these estimable organizations are following the rules of the Information Highway.
The ban ignored the bigger problem of a commercialized ecosystem, where everything and anything is monetized to generate revenue. The algorithmic reward systems are addictive, exploitative, and designed to function like quicksand: Easy to step into and tough to get out of.
Perhaps the Chinese and Russian approaches will deliver what Australia wants?
Whitney Grace, April 22, 2026
The Cool Down Is Not Down with the Google
April 17, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
My feed output a link from an outfit I know little about. It may be a smart robot or a wily humanoid. The write up did catch my attention. Its title? A grabber:
However, Google does offer a somewhat wonky “advanced search” function. Do you know how to locate it? See the answer at the foot of this blog post. Note that BearBlog in lovely South Africa thinks that my essays are written by AI systems. (Sorry Lemon Squeezy. You are lost in the Afrikaans semantic wilderness. Your words about censorship and your actions are like a person who thinks Google search intentionally misleads people.)
Many of the OSING crowd end up relying on Google or tools that suck information from the Google. Some venture into the murky water of Russian language indexes or the really slippery Chinese Web indexes. But for many professionals, the Google is the source. (One might ask, “What happens if Google does not index something indexes certain sites on a relaxed schedule? The answer could be, “That information does not exist for billions of users. Ponder that for information shaping opportunities, please.)
Now back to this assertion that “Google searches are intentionally unusable to increase AI usage.” The assumption many people make is that Google indexes the world’s information. Bad assumption. Furthermore, people assume that Google outputs are “objective.” Bad assumption. Others believe that Google is a computer and, therefore, is just right. Bad assumption.
The write up points out that a person named @bwags asserted that Google search outputs are not particularly helpful. Then the article does a flip and a lateral arabesque, stating:
Wagner’s viral post Saturday coincided with a high-profile collision between real life and digital life — a 20-year-old California woman sued Instagram’s parent company, Meta, along with Google’s YouTube, alleging that the platforms knew their products were harmful and habit-forming.
Yikes, is this a suggestion that useless search results are harmful in the same way YouTube rabbit holes about see-thru clothing and Facebook’s displaying posts about not eating in order to be buff?
The write then pivots to “fleece lined pants.” I know that you may not follow the logic, and I must admit I am not sure what the Cool Down article is communicating or trying to communicate. The fleece thing surfaces in this passage:
“It used to be you went online to search ‘fleece lined work pants 30×30’ and [Google] returned a handful of results that met your criteria,” it began. “Thanks to technological improvements, that is no longer possible.”
Okay, I navigated to Google.com and entered this query. Note that I was logged in as an actual Google user who pays for assorted services. I want to point out that a few of these are pretty much useless; for example, Gemini, the YouTube autoplay function, and hit-and-miss Mandiant/Wiz announcements about security at the same time DeepMind is working to create models specifically designed to find software issues and identify these to Mandiant/Wiz and some bad actors.
Here’s what Google produced on April 10, 2026, at 1005 am US Eastern time:
Yep, fleece lined pants. Good enough for a normcore Google user. A person to the right of the bell curve “center” would use a better query than “men fleece lined pants.” Less than two percent of humans on earth using Google would navigate to the advanced Google search page and specify exactly what is required to get information on fleece lined pants. These seem pretty much the same to me: Some type of allegedly “real” or “fake fur” lining, high prices, and weird colors that will get a person shot if wandering in the woods in deer hunting season. Remember, please, I live in rural Kentucky. If you live in Manhattan, Oakland, or Woodside in Chicago, you may want to opt for a different type of garment; for example, one that defines Yee Yee’s efforts. (To learn more about Yee Yee, click here for information.)
My view of this article is that Google does have its own agenda, and its often clueless users have another. Guess where the Cool Down falls?
Google Advanced Search nestles in sparkling wonkiness on this landing page.
PS. Do you think that any large language model writes how I do? If so, you qualify for a job working with Lemon Squeezy.
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2026
Telegram Rewrites User Messages and Censorship Blooms Like Flowers in the Township
April 8, 2026
Telegram Notes is almost back online. If there is art in a GOAT post, the image emerged from smart software. Grandpa Arnold is not Grandma Moses. The words, however much they appear to be output from a smart system, have been output by a still living dinobaby with some humanoid features.
Our informal blog Telegram Notes is back online. Recent Telegram-related posts appear to have been blocked, scrubbed, or otherwise disappeared from LinkedIn, a couple of LE and intel-related groups, and from a freedom loving, privacy oriented blogging service in lovely South Africa. No surprise to me.
Filtering and Monitoring?
Microsoft and LinkedIn should know what my team and I have been doing. If you don’t understand the methods used to monitor and respond to information not on the agenda of the world’s best developer of email programs, just navigate to Browsergate and work through “LinkedIn Is Illegally Searching Your Computer.” With these alleged data, one wonders, “How did Microsoft/LinkedIn get smart software so very, very wonky?” And the South African operator? No clue. I learned that my content was “flagged” as AI generated. I am not sure whether to be flattered or baffled.
Thanks, Venice.ai. You did not tell me I was creating an abusive image today. Outstanding. Too bad the illustration is just good enough.
Cape Town Cares
The South African censorship move was courtesy of a free spirit in Cape Town, South Africa. (Those townships on the road from the airport to the central city are a delight. Shabeem thinking may be prevalent outside of these residential spaces.) I know that this dinobaby is not the swiftest 82 year old prowling the rest home’s grounds, but it is interesting to think that I am relying on smart software to produce snappy phrases like “write up” and “leadership” in my idiosyncratic way. I even have a GenX or GenY explanation of the content removal. If you want to check out where you too can have your content sanitized, navigate to the cute privacy first just censored BearBlog at https://bearblog.dev/.
Back Online with Telegram Notes… Sort Of
We have managed a new post about Pavel Durov’s Telegram. The write up explains that Telegram has deployed an AI editor in its Messenger container. What’s interesting is that when a Telegram user enters certain phrases, the Chinese large language model changes user content to an acceptable Chinese Communist Party form. You can read that at https://shorturl.at/GhSST.
We haven’t worked out the listing of articles so each appears with the most recent at the top of the stack. There are some definite spacing weirdnesses, and one of my semi-capable team is working on that issue as well.
Observations
A few dinobaby thoughts zipped slowly through what passes for my brain these days:
- When writing about a service like Telegram and posting that information in the US, censorship happens. The vendors insist it doesn’t, and I know that vendors especially like the BAIT (big AI tech) outfits never, ever fabricate or stretch the truth.
- Whatever angle we are taking on Telegram, Pavel Durov, the TON Foundation, TONcoin, TON Strategy Company, AlphaTON Capital, and the cast of characters associated with this sprawling system — someone, somewhere is taking the trouble to block the content.
- Online has become an interesting place. It is populated by Softies, Cape Towners like Herman Martinus, MBAs at LinkedIn, and BAIT guardrail developers.
I still find people like Moti Cristil, Oskar Hartmann, Manny Stotz, Yuri Mitin, and the GOAT himself Pavel Durov fascinating professionals. When you are 82, I hope you find a hobby as fulfilling as mine. Most of the stories about Manny, for example, do not get the timeline for his Kingsway plays straight. Few know about the estimable elite-only Equium Club which operates in places where movers and shakers move and shake. Not too many people have paid attention to the interesting career trajectory of a Ph.D. who worked for Cambridge Analytica and now serves as the president of a company engaged in AI compute leasing and online games named AlphaTON Capital with Enzo Villani, a former NASDAQ professional assisting the firm. The share price of ATON (the Mitin / Villani company and not the Russian bank of that name) was about $0.32 per share on April 7, 2026. That share price is below the NASDAQ threshold for a listed company.
The people in the rest home think I do real work. Nope, I have a hobby, and it is attracting attention from LinkedIn and the fellow who thinks his Bear Blog product is a garden. I think I understand. Gardens have to be pruned. I wonder if Herman’s AI identification system thinks this post you are reading was generated by one of the large language models. And LinkedIn / Microsoft, how can you have so much information about LinkedIn users and you continue to output truly peculiar software. Outlook in space? Nope, a giant technology company lost in space and flailing because its tether had a quality problem.
Oh, well, back to my hobby.
Stephen E Arnold, April 8, 2026
Why the World Loves US Big Tech Outfits: The Meta Example
March 31, 2026
![green-dino_thumb_thumb[3]](https://www.arnoldit.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/green-dino_thumb_thumb3-6.gif "green-dino_thumb_thumb[3]")
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
In the annals of big tech, one more lawsuit is likely to irrelevant. Even with LexisNexis-type systems, the decision will probably be as difficult to locate as the 1868 Erie War involving that charming fellow Corny Vanderbilt. Be that as it may, I noted the BBC article “Meta Told to Pay $375m for Misleading Users over Child Safety.” The write up reports as actual factual:
A court in New Mexico has ordered Meta to pay $375m (£279m) for misleading users over the safety of its platforms for children. A jury found that Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, was liable for the way in which its platforms endangered children and exposed them to sexually explicit material and contact with sexual predators.
How nitroglycerin like is an allegation about kiddies and explicit material? Based on what I hear at the law enforcement conferences which invite me to speak, this is a topic that catches investigator attention. A couple of years ago I presented an analysis of a business person’s online service. This individual was a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He operated a data service for businesses, and he operated what I call a “ghost service” for individuals with what I called less than salubrious interests. Not only did a couple of investigators want to speak with me after my talk, I had a follow up conversation with a Federal investigator in Detroit, and a phone call from an investigator who wanted me to send my presentation to a government connected organization focused on the types of content apparently referenced in this litigation. Usually someone says, “Good presentation.” Once in a while, I will be asked to join a group of attendees in the bar to talk informally (of course).
Thanks, MidJourney. Believe it or not, Venice.ai refused to generate the image because I requested adult content. Make sense? Sure, because good enough is indeed excellence.
I am not interested in the alleged fine. I know there will be appeals. Big companies have legal resources and often deal with set backs by playing the long game or just ignoring the legal outcome. That’s what the losing company’s legal eagles beat their wings and squawk for. Yeah, that and billing. I don’t want to forget that minor detail.
I want to step back and ask this question, “What is the impact of the charges levied at a US big tech firm in other countries?” Based on my personal experience of living in another country and working in a handful of these nations, I would offer these observations:
- Although heinous, this particular case provides a case study of a big tech outfit in the US doing exactly what it incentivizes employees to do. I want to be clear: The job descriptions and the incentive plans for workers allow certain steps to be taken. Thus, the behavior is emergent. Take away the lingo of the job description and the metrics for a bonus or promotion, and the worker behavior changes. Without these direct actions, certain behaviors are almost guaranteed to produce the type of issues identified in this litigation.
- The managerial and leadership set up makes it possible for a senior manager to say, “Whoa, I did not know this situation was taking place.” That is probably true. The job description, the incentives, and the compounds in the Petri dish blossom with behaviors others may find egregious. This means the leadership is telling a “truth” so the firm’s lawyers can do what lawyers do. (See my comment about billing.)
- Observers outside the US wonder how a company can allow certain actions to occur. Over time, if the US big tech companies demonstrate similar product and service manifestations, either fear, frustration, or distrust becomes linked with the concept of a US big tech firm. Just as a whiff of a spouse’s perfume can evoke memories or emotions, these trials perform the same function with regard to US big technology. Toss in AI capabilities and big tech becomes BAIT (big AI tech). Such associations are not helpful for American firms’ image.
The BBC article adds:
Meta is also involved in a separate trial in Los Angeles, in which a young woman claims that she became addicted to platforms like Instagram and YouTube, owned by Google, as a child because of how they are intentionally designed. There are thousands of similar lawsuits winding their way through the US courts.
That word “thousands” is shocking. The implications of the business actions of US companies could have knock on effects that the companies themselves will not recognize. At some point, fines and talk could be judged ineffective. That’s why it is helpful to look at how countries like Russia are making a tactical decision to kill Telegram. Could that happen in other countries? That’s a question worth considering in my opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, March 31, 2026
Regulations Just 20 years Too Late
March 23, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I found “Australia’s Teen Social Media Ban Is Just Training A Generation In The Art Of The Workaround.” Yep, take a group, provide an incentive to obtain a product or service, and watch innovation happen. Australia banned social media for children. The children with some technical know how or friends who were equipped with the requisite skills figured out how to get around the government block. No surprise. It happens when countries, companies, or schools seek to interfere with access to online services.
A new tech “bro” leader has been recognized by social media-holics. Can these folks think straight? Sure. Thanks, MidJourney. Acceptable and just barely good enough.
The reason I liked the write up boils down to this passage:
The ban is basically a test of technical sophistication, rather than a test of vulnerability. The kids who can’t figure out how to get around it — or who don’t have friends or older siblings to help them — are the kids who are already isolated or lack the technical skills to bypass a block. Those are the kids with disabilities who lost their support communities, the ones we wrote about last month. Those are the kids in rural areas or difficult home situations who relied on these platforms for connection. The ban selected for vulnerability and filtered against resourcefulness.
Iran is struggling to black out online. Russia continues to amp up its pressure to force users of Telegram Messenger to change to the state-approved Max app. One private school where I live in rural Kentucky tried to prevent students from bring mobile phones to school. Yeah, tough sell.
The hook it the quoted passage is that such interventions force the clever to the top of the demographic. The expertise to do a workaround causes a particular type of learning. The person with the technical know-how becomes the go-to person for a technical fix. The person with the expertise learns that knowledge is power. The learnings reinforce the idea that technology has the answers to problems created by governments, schools, and know-nothings.
The lesson sticks.
The write up focuses on some other facets of the bans that kids can workaround; for example:
- False sense that a government action worked as planned
- Reduced oversight by parents who think the social media problem is now solved
- We have this under control so there’s no need to change the approach
Let’s step back. The lack of regulation US big tech outfits specifically focused on increasing engagement of those under the age of 18 using social media is a bit of a problem. We have the odd suicide, the anecdotal information about bullying, and the ennui of some young social media users. We have nation states trying to prevent adult citizens from using social media. And then watching a nation state intent on blocking Telegram usage using Telegram. The information of that “allegedly secure and private” messaging app is now in a lock up. A critic of Putin used Telegram and apparently Russian officials were using Telegram and spotted the fellow’s message. The content was not about CP, drugs, online gambling. The content was critical of the Kremlin. What’s the message? You use it and we use it. When we catch you, off you go to some salubrious state facility.
Society cannot go back in time no matter what the whiz kid time crystal researchers hypothesize. The time for regulatory action arrived a couple of decades ago. Learn to live in this wonderful social media, manipulative, and increasingly synthetic information environment. I am a dinobaby. Many people are not. Enjoy that doom scrolling and the follow-on: Doom living. Perhaps we should blame: [a] US big social media tech outfits, [b] parents, [c] schools, and [shellfish]. I wouldn’t want to blame a regulator. Those folks are working hard; they are on time and on target.
Stephen E Arnold, March 23, 2026
Microsoft Tries Language Control: How Is the L’Académie française Doing?
March 10, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Microsoft wants to control language; specifically, the language used to describe the output from the company’s 2026 version of Clippy. In France, l’Académie française has been working hard to prevent words from becoming part of the “officially approved” language of France. For example, one can get a dirty look with a stray “le weekend” or a “Kevin.” But language is a slippery beast. I assume that Microsoft can operate in a more effective manner than France’s official authority on language purity.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
I read “Microsoft Gets Tired of Microslop, Bans the Word on Its Discord, Then Locks the Server after Backlash.” The write up explains:
Microsoft’s aggressive AI push in Windows 11 through 2025 brought upon themselves the title Microslop. Unfortunately for the company, it’s everywhere on social media, and there isn’t a way to stop the spread, unless, of course, it’s their own Discord server. Windows Latest was first to notice that the word “Microslop” was actively filtered in the official Microsoft Copilot Discord server.
Okay, it’s pretty clear that Microsoft will have to up its enforcement in order to stop allegedly free speech types who do not report to the Softies to implement more controls. Here’s a list of thought starters for the company that would be a country:
- Microsoft spelling checkers simple replace “Microslop” with a pop up that displays options but no manual input box; for example: Microsoft, superior, or brilliance
- Copilot prowls a user’s content archive on the local device and the cloud automatically replacing the offending work with Microsoft
- Microsoft’ s Windows 11 user action monitoring system watches each keystroke. If Microsoft is detected, then the Windows 11 system displays a message like “An unauthorized word has been detected. It has been replaced with the word Microsoft. A second offense will result in the machine locking the logged in user from the device.”
The cited article points out:
the company is responsible for this fallout, as they prioritized AI more than the stability of the OS that it needs to run on. Copilot, being the most visible face of that effort, has naturally become the scapegoat. So when a nickname like “Microslop” starts trending across socials, it was only a matter of time before it reached official channels as well. Windows Latest found that sending a message with the word “Microslop” inside the official Copilot Discord server immediately triggers an automated moderation response. The message does not appear publicly in the channel, and instead, only the sender sees the notice stating that the content is blocked by the server because it contains a phrase deemed inappropriate.
This means that Microsoft is thinking along the same lines as me. I know that as a dinobaby, I am hopelessly out of touch with language. Microsoft, in theory, should know better than to try to force people who are leaving Paris for a “faire le pont” on a bank holiday will probably just use the forbidden word “weekend.” But Microsoft obvious is more capable than a mere country which has been trying for hundreds of years to keep French French.
My thought is that stamping out Microslop is going to be difficult. In fact, it may be more problematic than eliminating “big back” from teen argot. But Microsoft still does Clippy type stuff. Maybe the company will be more capable than l’Académie française? Polymarket play, anyone?
Stephen E Arnold, March 10, 2026
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