Bar Fights, Fish Tanks, and Ghost Work: How They Quiet Your Voice

Bar Fights, Fish Tanks, and Ghost Work: How They Quiet Your Voice

Hello there. I was asked to speak on this subject, and I said yes because I know the list I’m on—I’m on it with you. They’re not fooling me anymore.

Facebook, to be fair, has made some improvements. I’ve seen it. I even had another account once that I was never able to recover. One day it was simply gone into the great digital cornfield. I fought it for a while, then finally said, “Oh well,” and started over. I’m a songwriter. I could write a song every day; starting over is not new to me.

They say we live in a democracy now. What they mean is they like to count noses and call it wisdom. Fifty‑one hands go up and forty‑nine people are supposed to smile and say thank you. That is not a republic. That is a bar fight with better stationery.

In a republic, the point is simpler and harder: your rights don’t vanish because you are outnumbered, unfashionable, or irritating at dinner. A man’s speech is his own, the way his scars are his own. He may be wrong. He may be a fool. But if the crowd gets to decide who is allowed to speak, then sooner or later everyone is foolish in someone’s eyes, and the talking stops.

I don’t bring this up because I like drama. I bring it up because I care about the people who are already getting squeezed—folks who work full-time and are still one paycheck away from the sidewalk, living on credit cards and “next statement” hope. Life will always throw curve balls, yes. But in a country this rich, honest work should at least be enough to stand on. If you get up and do your job, you shouldn’t live like you’re one bad week from losing everything.

Now we have the new town squares. They glow in your hand. They call themselves “platforms,” which is a polite way of saying they are the ground everyone stands on, owned by men no one voted for. They say they are neutral. They are proud of their “community.” But they build the community like a fish tank. The glass is clear, but the water is theirs, and the filter, too.

When they don’t like a fish, they don’t pull it out. That would be crude. They just turn down the flow of water and say nothing.

They call this many names. Safety. Hygiene. Optimization. One day someone called it “shadow banning,” and everyone got nervous because it sounded too honest. It is an accurate name. You are still there. Your page loads. Your channel lives. But your voice travels about as far as a match in a hurricane.

The clever ones tell you it is your fault. Your thumbnails are bad. Your titles are wrong. Your timing is off. Your face is not smiling in the approved way. Watch more tutorials. Take more feedback. Be grateful. Work harder. These are poor fishermen who blame the fish for not jumping directly into the boat.

It’s the same sermon they preach about money:
If you’re broke, it’s just your budgeting.
If you’re drowning in interest, it’s just your attitude.
If you’re one bad week from sleeping in your car, it’s just your mindset.

Never mind wages that don’t keep up, rents that climb like ivy, and systems built like mazes. If they can keep you blaming yourself, they never have to admit how much control they really hold.

Some people love this sort of thing. They are the same kind of people who rearrange other people’s bookshelves and call it “helping.” Control is their hobby. They cannot mind their own business because they do not like the size of their own business. It is easier to manage the world than to manage themselves. Give them a button that says “reduce visibility,” and they will press it until the light suits them.

They love something they call “our democracy.” They say it often. It makes them feel like decent people while they pull check here quiet levers. But what they really love is being the fifty‑one percent, permanently, even when they are not. If they can’t win the argument in the open, they will win it in the settings menu.

If you are like me, you do not need strangers telling you who you are. A man who has lived with himself long enough has done that work already. Don’t tell me how to think. Don’t tell me what to like. You may tell me what you think. You may tell me what you like. That is your right. But the moment you decide your feelings should control my reach, something crooked has entered the room.

In a pure democracy, the mob decides what is acceptable today and burns what it disliked yesterday. In a republic, the rules are supposed to be written down where everyone can see them, and they are not supposed to change because the wind did. Speech is protected especially when it is inconvenient, offensive, or makes people shift in their chairs. Pleasant speech needs no protection. No one ever banned a compliment.

That is why secret punishment is dangerous.

If you are going to restrict a man’s speech or bury his work where no one can find it, you owe him three things, and they are not complicated:

You tell him the rules in advance.
You tell him exactly what he did.
You give him a chance to answer.

Those are not luxuries. They are the bare minimum of honor. Soldiers used to die for less.

Whether it is the government with a law book or a platform with a dashboard, the principle is the same: no hidden penalties. No invisible courts. No silent sentences. If you mean to punish a man, at least have the courage to look him in the eye and say so.

When speech is quietly throttled with no notice and no explanation, you are no longer in a republic that guards rights. You are in a managed crowd where whoever holds the switches runs the conversation. Today they turn you down a little, “for your own good,” they say. Tomorrow they turn someone else down. One day you open your mouth and nothing carries. By then it is too late to complain. They already tuned you out.

And here is the part that bites:
If they can shadow‑ban your voice, they check here never have to hear about the fact that you are shadow‑living—on credit, on fumes, one emergency from disaster. Silencing the complaint is cheaper than fixing the cause.

You do not have to agree with what a man says to defend his right to say it plainly. In fact, the test is whether you defend him when you would rather he shut up. It is easy to stand up for the speech you enjoy. The hard kind, the only kind that matters in the long run, is standing up for the man you think is a fool and still saying, “Don’t do it to him in the dark. If you will hit him, hit him in daylight.”

The platforms will tell you they do not shadow ban. They say the word is wrong, or that it is only the algorithm, and the algorithm is as innocent as snow. They talk about “signals” and “trust scores” and “reducing borderline content,” which are long words for “turning some people down without telling them.” It is like saying, “We do not waterboard. We simply apply controlled aquatic discomfort.”

A little humor helps, because it is either laugh or grind your teeth. Imagine if the post office worked this way. You drop a letter get more info in the box. The clerk smiles and says, “Of course we value your participation.” Then a man in the back reads it, decides he doesn’t like your tone, and puts it in a special sack marked “deliver to nobody.” When you ask what happened, they say, “Have you tried changing your handwriting?”

The truth is simple. Adult societies do their fighting in the open. Children whisper and hide each other’s toys. If we want to be a republic and not a daycare with better technology, we must insist that punishment step into the light.

You do not have to hand everyone a megaphone. You do not have to host every word in your own house. But if you will lower the volume on a man’s voice, say so. Write it down. Give him a door to knock on.

Anything less is not moderation. It is ghost work.

What would I like instead? Nothing perfect. Just this:
If you work, you can stand.
If you speak, you are told honestly when you’re turned down.

Clear rules. Honest reasons. A chance to answer. Online, offline, rich, poor—that’s all.

So when I say I was asked to speak on this subject, understand this: I’m not doing it because I enjoy complaining. I’ve already had accounts vanish. I’ve already started over. I’ll keep writing songs as long as I have breath. I’m doing it because I’ve seen what happens when good people stay quiet while the switches get flipped in the dark.

The day we remember that rights sit above popularity, that speech is not a favor, and that punishment must never creep in through the side door, the shadow games will start to look like what they are: cheap tricks for people who can’t win a fair fight.

When that day comes, the men who have been pulling levers in the dark will curse the light.
The rest of us will call it morning.