My Battle With Social Media

Earlier this year I officially deleted my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Twitter was nothing more than a burner account I used for porn, so no huge loss there. However: Facebook and Instagram? They were particularly hard for me. As an artist it felt like I was cutting off my digital nose to spite my internet face. While Instagram seemed to be capping my follower count (I peaked around 4,000 and somehow stayed that way for over a decade) I was still able to use it to showcase newer works and upcoming shows. On top of that I soon discovered that most networking among artists and galleries/venues these days happen through the social media app - which posed a problem for me. Yes, I had recently begun using BlueSky (AedanRoberts.bsky.social) to fill the social media vacuum- but the platform is still new and many people have yet to hop on it. I have many theories why - but that's a topic for a different post...

So why did I leave META's platforms, then? The answer is a bit complicated but can be broken into two categories: their policies and their sociopathic, evil billionaire owner.

On the policy side of things: META changed their ToS at some point to state that antything you post to their various platforms are given implicit permission to be used to train their AI Algorithm. Which means that they can steal art from hundreds of thousands of artists (who rely on their shitty platforms to promote their work) and chuck it all directly into something that is meant to mimic, and ultimately replace, them. And here's the important part: they can claim to be doing it legally.

Would that legality hold up in court? To be honest: in this case I'm sure it would. Their ToS changes were very clear and well-reported. So unlike ChatGPT/Dall-E/Midjourney/etc. (who scrape the entirety of the internet for images to illegally steal work from countless artists/sources without permission), META gets to take advantage of the fact that they have a near-monopoly on good social media outreach for artists and remove any legal repercussions for stealing their style or images. All the while most artists continue to use the platform because what else can they do?

Now I know I'm not a prolific, famous artist like James Jean. I'm not out here with casual AI "Artists" prompting Instagram's algorithm to "make a picture of two dudes kissing in the style of Aedan Roberts." Miyazaki has a teeeeensie bit more reason to fear AI Art than I do...

...But I have a hard time being okay with it regardless. And it was becoming untenable to continue using a platform that had such contempt for the very people making it so successful.

So I did the thing. I posted a farewell, downloaded all my info, and jumped through all the hoops to completely obliterate myself from Meta's problematic platforms.

(As for the evil billionaire side of things? That one is far less complicated and a lot more cut and dry. Mark Zuckerburg is a bad person. Full stop. He's a sociopath whose uncanny-valley-esque mask has been slipping for years now. He was never particularly good at hiding his general contempt for everyone but himself- but since the idiot currently rotting in the White House slithered onto the political scene and dragged everything into the mire with him? Zuckerburg has become increasingly right-wing radicalized and quite open about it. It was around the time that he began to attack his own LGBTQIA employees that I decided it was way overdue to remove myself from any opportunity for him to gather more data on me. It contributed to my haste to delete everything.)

So here I am, months later.

And what is my current situation?

Well...

Soon after I deleted everything I participated in the Superfine Art Fair in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. It was there that the sudden lack of Instagram came into bold, striking contrast. Everyone - and I mean everyone (from the people viewing the art, to fellow artists, to prospective gallery/event reps) - did all their correspondence on Instagram. It was so ubiquitous that by the second day I had re-acquired my recently obliterated username (@aedanroberts) and set up a brand new, empty account.

I thought "well I can re-claim my name, make a single post explaining where to go to view my art and keep it active for DM purposes."

And for the past several months that's exactly what I did.

However this tactic still had problems. Many people did not have BlueSky- which is where I have been showcasing newer works that even my website hasn't been given yet. Which means many people simply were not seeing newer work from me. Long story short: the lack of any work on Instagram was felt near-daily.

Cut to now. Tactics have shifted.

If I can't beat them? I can rejoin them inside a lovely Digital Trojan Horse. You see, I finally did the proper research and figured out how I could have my digital cakes and squat them too:

Glaze & Nightshade (https://glaze.cs.uchicago.edu/)

These two programs allow me to put images of my work through two kinds of filters: one that is defensive against AI training models (Glaze) and one that offensively poisons training data that tries to use your images (Nightshade)*. And while they are a bit slow and tedious- for the first time in months I am once again posting work to my recently obliterated-then-reacquired Instagram account (@aedanroberts).

I'm not thrilled that the answer to "get off Instagram" is "Go back on Instagram but with a twist." It genuinely makes me frustrated that, as an artist, I find myself backed into a corner where I am forced to utilize websites/companies that are genuinely evil. But that is where we are at. It's where we've been for DECADES. At least in this instance I can fight back in my own tiny way. Hopefully.

*for more information on Glaze and Nightshade click the link provided above. The more artists utilizing this tech the more damage we can do to the AI training data that these companies are hoping will eventually completely replace us.