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AI, misinformation, and the “trans debate”
Hands up if you experienced an uptick in detrans posts and narratives on your various feeds over the last week. Detransitioners have been the exclusionary feminist cause of choice over the last year, and Prager U’s Detrans documentary dropped this week with a $1 million add spend on Twitter. It was pushed with a pernicious narrative, the sort of misinformation couched in a veneer of concerned for the youth that would make Reagan blush. Twitter’s algorithm promoted it to the top of feeds, instantly making it visible to people who would not otherwise care about trans issues, igniting another bush fire in the raging inferno that has become the “trans debate”.
This weaponization of algorithms to harm minorities is nothing new, in the pre-digital times actuarial tables, conscription rolls, and other mathematical charts were used to calculate the worth of minorities as something lesser than those deemed acceptable. What is new in the digital age is the speed at which misinformation can spread, at which algorithms can propagate hate based on a single click. This is often subtle, a series of sidesteps leading you into a darker shade of the world, especially when you have no vested interest in the subject at hand.
Conceptions of the “trans debate” are also centuries old, usually consisting of the demonisation of cross dressing and women who behave like…
