A few years ago, a Malaysian friend told me during the Twitter meltdown that she’s carefully cultivated a Malaysian safe bubble for herself on Twitter and she’s leery of losing that.

Back then, I wasn’t very active on social media; I hung out mostly to drop brief comments on Twitter to people who talk about personal finance. I generally avoid the gurus and their acolytes. So, I thought it was a strange thing to willingly ensconce yourself in an information/conversation bubble.

I GET IT NOW.

After getting on Mastodon, I got super excited but quickly discovered how censorious some of its citizens can be.

a) If you support a narrative on a subject that the majority of Mastodon doesn’t, you will probably be cancelled.

b) You need to constantly be aware of the cultural triggers of the majority on various topics, especially writing, AI and certain countries they do not like. If you happen to not know woe betide unto you if you say something not accepted by the majority.

The urge to self censor and speak up in rebellion

When I wrote the post, What if using AI to write fiction isn’t an evil act? the insults I got stunned me. I was so ensconced in my AI positive/neutral real world that I don’t even realise how angry and unreasonable these people were.

Yet, when some people subtly told me maybe I shouldn’t have written on that topic, I became rebellious. People telling me not to do something? Well that’s usually my trigger to do it anyway.

So, I constantly struggle between self-censorship and rebellious speaking out all the time.

A more personal and spicy perspective below, for subscribers to my blog only. (Free, no payment required.)