Wanderings – Two wrongs don’t make a right

The Merriam-Webster dictionary editors announced their word of the year for 2025 on Monday – slop. Slop, as defined by that dictionary, is “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”

There is a nearly infinite amount of Slop on the internet. Open up your Facebook feed or Instagram app (no Tiktok please, I’m over 30) and it is filled with Slop posts – more so on Facebook. Every third posting on that platform is an advertisement, and every other post is Slop. I don’t have a problem with ads, as I have worked in media long enough to know people need to get paid for the work they do – shares and likes don’t pay the bills. But, I have a problem with Slop.

I deleted my Twitter/X account over a year ago, as that social media network degraded into a cesspool of rage-baiting narcissists, preppers, alt-right wing conspirators, and AI-generated Slop.

While I do support using AI in controlled ways, like spell-checking, grammar-checking, and such, Slop content creation is just that, Slop. Slop is a reflection of how bad the media industry has become.

Why pay for a person to write an article, or a column, when AI will generate a column in under an minute? All for the total cost of less than a quarter-hour’s time of an entry-level reporter or content creator. From a business perspective, cutting financial costs makes sense. But Slop is just that, Slop.

As Facebook and Instagram don’t allow many legitimate media companies to put news on their platforms, not just in Canada, there are fewer opportunities to challenge the Slop with correct information. That said, I don’t think Slop or AI should be banned. Informed readers/consumers can counter Slop. In fact, except for hate speech or exploitative speech, I don’t believe in bans. Hate speech I define as speech that calls for the harming or killing of an identifiable group; exploitative speech is speech or content created that harms or exploits others to create it including sexual exploitation.

Earlier this month, Australia enacted a ban on social media for youth younger than 16 years old. I understand why it was done – distracted youths and all the issues associated with online use. That includes issues with bullying, school attention, inattention at home, and the like. But banning something makes it more attractive. Tell someone they can’t do a “thing”, and nine times out of 10, they will want to do that thing even more. Now it’s a forbidden thing – how attractive! Banning things is banning knowledge. Not all knowledge is good or bad.

Ontario has done the same thing with youth having phones at school. Students aren’t allowed to bring their cellphones into class, unless it is for an authorized purpose as set by the teacher of that class. It hasn’t fixed the issues in the classes, as there are still kids who are inattentive according to some teachers I know.

Ontario, Australia, and others have put the cart before the horse in dealing with banning social media or phones. Again, banning or even restricting things makes them more enticing.

For years, school boards and the Ministry of Education have had policies and rules against phone use in schools. Rather than ban the items, administer the penalties for violating the rules. Send the students to the office, confiscate the phones, and call the student’s parent(s). If it is egregious or downright criminal what has been done, such as cyber-bullying or a similar issue, then involve the police.

If we as a society, go around banning everything in sight because we cannot show youth how to be responsible, then we all should not have that particular item—whether it’s a cellphone, a social media app, or artificial intelligence.