The X is no longer the unknown

When I went to school, X was the unknown to isolate. Back then we called it “despejar”, because what was a real school unknown was Catalan! The X of today is no longer that unknown that had to be found in the algebra equation. We are getting to know it quite well. Perhaps not everything about it is known, because the algorithms that guide it are complex and not easy to unravel. Just as the human soul is not! But we do know what they intend: that we get hooked on it, that we depend on it, that it irritates us and that we react to it. And to achieve all this, they make X trained to agree with us or to provoke a response if we dispute it. X's algorithms seem to set the polarized morality of our time.

It is true that X is still useful for obtaining information through open and free channels. But it disseminates as much information as disinformation. And isolating X is no longer useful for obtaining the exact result of the equation, but rather its role is, all at once, to guide and confuse, to adhere and confront, to unite and separate, to calm and distress, to subjugate and agitate... It serves to crack informational hegemonies, yes, but also for the opposite: to create new and disguised uninformed submissions. I don't like to attribute moral qualities to machines and say that it has become a diabolical instrument. I resist it, because what I see is the ability to unveil and take advantage of both the strongest and weakest human traits, and to take them to the extreme. In any case, what is certain is that the algorithm should not be an excuse to shirk responsibility for the use we make of the machine, just as we cannot hide behind the skirts of the human condition to justify our crimes.

Let's remember a recent case. At the beginning of the path to independence, in 2006, with the failure of the Statute reform and when X was still Twitter, this tool was fundamental to break the institutional information uniformity of the time. In the first years of the independence process, of that popular awakening, you either found it online or you didn't see it in the major hegemonic media. Furthermore, in the midst of battle, it was on Twitter that we discovered that with very little strength, with a few lines or an image, we could laugh at the biggest aggressors. Remember how we made fun of Minister García-Margallo when he threatened us about a future nation lost in the galaxies. And how we mocked Sáenz de Santamaría when she claimed to have put "on liquidation" an entire democratic popular will. Or how we spread those inspiring lipdubs, like the one in Vic. But later we also learned that it was through mobile phones and networks that we were spied on illegally, and, above all, we have seen that later X and other applications have been used to feed the old Catalan self-hatred, so easy to grow when you feel defeated.

Now, with more refined algorithms, X is at the service of confirmation bias, one of the human mechanisms that have most served to create group bonds, to differentiate ourselves from those who put the group in danger, and to reinforce our own prejudices in order to make us feel safe within our small world. An extraordinarily complex instrument that reproduces older and deeper cerebral mechanisms of the species. To put it with an exaggeration: how human the algorithms are! How well they know us! How they resemble us! And, in any case, if we differ from them, it is only because they perfect our virtues, vices, and weaknesses. 

To verify the accuracy of the argument of what I am now writing, within a few days of each other I made two posts on X of contradictory political content. In one I said I hoped to see Trump and Netanyahu before the Human Rights Court tried for crimes against humanity. In the other, I suggested that wanting to prevent Lebanon from becoming a new Gaza, as Pedro Sánchez proposed, must mean that Hezbollah had to be expelled. It goes without saying that, whether the comments were in favor – few – or against – the majority –, the responses placed me, without nuance, on one ideological side of the conflict or the other. It was possible, thanks to the astuteness of the algorithm trained to provoke visceral reactions, to go from being a confessed antisemite to being an accomplice to genocide. The reactions ranged from absolute adherence to not even being reproducible in a space like this because they would fit perfectly within what is now called hate speech. And, by the way, who says that both posts could not be consistently sustained?

In conclusion: X is no longer that unknown pending isolation. In fact, X is all of us taken to the extreme. And, perhaps, that is why it bothers us: because it exposes our vulnerable human condition.