YouTube – If there is something

Artificial Impersonators

Used to be you’d turn on the old boob tube and watch some comedian like Rich Little, Dana Carvey or Darrell Hammond do impressions of famous figures that were so spot on they sounded like the real thing. Only they obviously weren’t because the voice was clearly coming out of a different person and the content was entirely farcical.

Recently, I was consuming content on the internet’s most prominent boob tube channel when I realized I was being taken for a ride by one of its artificial impersonators. I’ve been watching Bishop Robert Barron’s channel since way back when he was only Father Barron and his content featured movie reviews in which he’d insert some relevant christian theology. The other day I’m listening to one of his messages on a channel I’d never heard of before when I became curious about the YouTube account and the channel’s background. The thumbnail featured Bishop Barron’s image and the audio sounded like a message or sermon he’d possibly recorded privately or perhaps spoken publicly at some time or another. Here’s a direct quote from the video’s description:

“In this 21-minute morning message, Bishop Robert Barron reflects on the power of morning prayer, gratitude, and surrender to God’s plan.

“Through Scripture, prayer, and reflection, Bishop Barron reminds us that when we start our day with thankfulness and intention, we align our hearts with divine peace and purpose.”

I immediately wondered if this channel represented some new offering from Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire Ministries, so I read on. After scrolling through chapter titles, hashtags and descriptions of what I would learn from “Bishop Robert Barron’s Catholic insights,” I finally arrived at this disclaimer:

“This message includes public theological reflections and prayers inspired by Bishop Robert Barron.”

Because I’m not super bright, and I’m old and not very clever when it comes to the ways of technology, the internet and social media, I still did not get the hint.

The message included “public theological reflections and prayers.” So, Bishop Barron spoke these words publicly and someone recorded it and here it is, right?

If, at that moment, someone would have smacked me upside the head and said, “Do I need to spell it out for you?” I would have deserved it. Instead, there is this:

“Altered or synthetic content: Sound or visuals were significantly edited or digitally generated.”

As much as I wanted to believe that I hadn’t been duped by an artificial impersonator, it became abundantly clear that I had. Apparently, many others had been as well, because there were lots of comments thanking Bishop Barron for the message.

The channel is called “The Divine Motivation,” it’s on YouTube and it’s fake. It is not Bishop Barron, and it doesn’t matter if it has some ambiguous disclaimer buried deep within the show notes, it is deliberately deceptive. Some additional searching immediately revealed two other artificial impersonator channels: “Bishop Barron’s Motivations” and “The Faith Journey.”

I know I sound like an old man yelling at technology. I can imagine someone countering, “Where have you been, old timer? This is the world we live in.” Fair enough. But this old man can’t abide while dull-witted content creators harness technology to impersonate authentic, exceptional, thoughtful and inspiring human beings.

Using someone else’s name, likeness and voice to create artificial messages without being upfront about it is massively deceptive. And you can never motivate, inspire, reveal truth or instill hope through fakery and deceit.

Mr. Kang pushes boundaries of all-you-can-eat buffet dining

A Chinese food influencer and live-streamer finds himself at the center of controversy today over whether limits can be placed on the amount of food one can consume at all-you-can-eat establishments.

Known simply as Mr. Kang, the livestreamer complained on Hunan TV of discrimination after being kicked out of the Handadi Seafood BBQ Buffet for eating too much. “I can eat a lot – is that a fault?” Kang asked.

Apparently the owner of the restaurant thinks so. “Every time he comes here, I lose a few hundred yuan,” he said. “Even when he drinks soy milk, he can drink 20 or 30 bottles. When he eats the pork trotters, he consumes the whole tray of them. And for prawns, usually people use tongs to pick them up, he uses a tray to take them all.”

The issue has sparked fierce debate over whether limits can be placed on buffet dining or whether the freedom to eat is universal and should not be infringed upon. Freedom to eat absolutists argue it is the dining right that makes all the others possible.

“Where does it end? You start with all-you-can-eat is not really all-you-can-eat. Next you’re limiting free refills on soft drinks. Then fortune cookies are extra. Do we really want to go down that slippery slope?” asks popular YouTube food scholar, Professor Waffles.

Others feel strict limitations should be placed on eating influencers and live-streamers, even suggesting outright bans on all-you-can-eat buffets.

For now, Mr. Kang will have to explore new frontiers in buffet dining elsewhere as he and all other live-streamers have been blacklisted from the establishment.

Night of the Living Algorithm

Every time the story is told it becomes more chilling than the last. Caleb Cain – West Virginia resident, college dropout, YouTube enthusiast – stalked by an algorithm bent on radicalizing the unsuspecting young lad into a world of rightwing extremism. Thankfully for Caleb Cain, and the entire universe for that matter, the New York Times swooped in and rescued the impressionable young man from his YouTube nightmare, exposing the dastardly algorithm before it could do further harm.

Fresh off his hellish ordeal, Caleb Cain is calling upon legions of YouTubers to take up arms against the wicked algorithm and prevent this fiend of hell from spreading it’s darkness across the land. Appearing on Majority Report, hosted by YouTube celebrity and slayer of strawmen Sam Seder, Caleb urged lefty YouTubers to start injecting themselves into the algorithm as a means of defeating it. As horrifying as the image of confronting the demon may be, this act of purification may be the only means of preventing it from claiming more victims.

To get a rough idea of how many Caleb Cain’s there might be out there operating under the spell of this Svengali-esque algorithm, we need look no further than the 2016 presidential election results. Donald Trump won 68.5 percent of the popular vote in West Virginia, Caleb Cain’s home state. That translates into nearly 490,000 other Caleb Cain’s succumbing to the manipulation of this diabolical algorithm in the Mountaineer State alone.

Host of the popular podcast Savage Love, Dan Savage perhaps best described the sinister power the YouTube algorithm possesses on Friday’s Real Time with Bill Maher. Citing the New York Times “great cover story,” Savage fearlessly called out the algorithm for force feeding unsuspecting white kids in their basements “a steady diet of more and more extreme videos.” In truly terrifying fashion, the YouTube algorithm exploits the consumer’s weaknesses, forcing their hand to click on extreme content all while disabling critical faculties that might lead the viewer to turn away.

One can only imagine the debilitating PTSD Caleb Cain must have fought through during an appearance on CNN’s New Day with Alisyn Camerota. With inspiring bravery, Caleb announced that what we’re really dealing with here is a crisis of public health. Mental health intervention and professional assistance is required to exorcise the algorithm’s powerful grip on the mind and soul of its victims. Despite the real threat of reprisal, Caleb fearlessly promoted his organization on national television to assist those in the throes of rightwing radicalization.

When one thinks of the countless YouTube viewers selling their souls to the algorithm, the number is truly terrifying, and has the potential to make the satanic scare of the 1980’s look like child’s play. But despite the algorithm’s possession of Caleb Cain, forcing him time and again to click on increasingly extreme content, Caleb somehow managed to survive his ordeal and inexplicably emerged as both a consumer and producer of left leaning YouTube content. It is no wonder the New York Times chose to highlight Caleb’s truly inspiring story of grace and redemption on the front page of its Sunday edition. Finally exorcised of the demon algorithm, Caleb Cain begins the life-long process of witnessing to the non-believers and the willfully naive. The soul of a nation is at stake.

In an effort to root out disinfo and crush competition, Daily Beast leaves no stone unturned

Emboldened by their successful effort to take down an obscure operator of right wing Facebook pages, The Daily Beast goon squad has now set their sights on a number of other purveyors of disinformation threatening our democracy. Chief enforcer, Dark Dante, as he’s more commonly known, has identified several internet disinfo agents who are either wittingly or unwittingly doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin and the Russians.

Main offender on The Beast’s shit list is a 77 year old granny who produces knitting videos on YouTube where she occasionally lets slip some unflattering comments about Hillary Clinton that may or may not be factually accurate, and may or may not be suitable for 77 year old grannies. After reaching out to his contacts at YouTube, Dark Dante not only succeeded in having all the videos removed, but was able to determine the location of the subversive sewing circle and expose the group as an existential threat to American democracy. Needless to say, thanks to the work of The Beast, the offending granny is no longer welcome at Shady Pines Retirement Village.

Next up, Dark Dante, intrepid reporter for The Daily Beast, received an anonymous tip about a fifth grader who, while making a class presentation on America’s border crisis, may have included some information The Daily Beast fact checkers determined to be slightly misleading. No worries, a little bit of creative hacking into the schools antiquated computer network revealed the fifth grader’s name and address. In a matter of hours, Woodlawn Elementary School was once again made safe for democracy as the pint-sized disinfo agent was escorted from the premises.

Fascism wears many disguises, but thanks to the fearless reporting of Dark Dante and The Daily Beast, it’s running out of places to hide.