Social Media algorithms use many signals to choose winners (going viral) and losers (most of us). Every now and then you stumble upon one which really matters. I just found out that when a big account blocks you it’s a HUGE signal to the algo not to show your stuff.

Recently Dare Obasanjo was being his typical man child self and I called him out on his childish behavior. He then blocked me as is his right (coward).

Dare: Google declares it won’t have ads in Gemini!

Me: They put ads right next to the AI overview on the Search page

Dare: link to article reiterating what Google said

Me: It’s the same AI

Dare: Take the L and move on

Me: Obnoxious as always I see. I remember this when we were at Microsoft too. Grow up.

I really am surprised he hasn’t matured in his online behavior in all those years.

I’ve never been a fan of Google. I always thought “Don’t be evil” was naïve at best, and a lie and attempt to reputation wash at worst.

I was vindicated when they removed it after building military robots. They do evil things all the time, including shutting down people’s accounts with no recourse. Not fixing bugs in Android like when I texted “I love you” to my then girlfriend, it went to my BOSS who was quite confused. Found the bug online with “Won’t Fix” as the status.

So when Google says they won’t put ads on their AI, when they clearly already are, I take issue.

Unfortunately the block by such a large account put a severe distribution penalty on my Threads account. So I’m in distribution jail until the data used for that flag falls out of retention.