Getting crushed by big tech

In PJ Media, Stephen Green writes about how secret algorithms are crushing conservative media.

"Where do I go to get my reputation back, even though nobody knows I lost it?"

That seems paradoxical, since your reputation is what people generally think of you -- but in digital publishing what really counts is what computers think of you. Earlier this week, secret algorithms besmirched my digital reputation, in ways that could negatively impact my paycheck, and my employer's profits.

And it all happened behind the scenes, without any of my readers knowing.

Stephen had written a blog post at VodkaPundit about the sexbot devolution.

We've also been forced to a place where we can't discuss important social, legal, and technological issues without having to use ridiculous euphemisms like "knittingbots." Not, that is, if we want to stay in business.

It's fraud, too. Algos are representing my work and PJM's publication as something they're not, in ways that hurt us financially, and presumably to the benefit of just-as-clean sites that haven't been red-flagged. While I can't prove anything, due to the ad algos being both opaque and invisible (you can't see it working), I somehow doubt that the major, left-wing publications get the same red-flag treatment. The New York Times has published a number of pieces about knittingbots dating back to 2007, but it's a safe bet that the ad networks haven't tagged the entire nytimes.com domain with the ruinous red flag.

...What then, is to be done? Take another quixotic defamation case to court? Try and find the financing -- and enough sympathetic tech talent -- to break the stranglehold on internet advertising? Risk breaking the internet by getting big, fat government to sit on its back? Or just continue to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous algos?

Read more here, including many good comments.