Artificial intelligence has become all the rage with tech companies. If you train AI how to make pretty pictures, write copy ranging from social media posts to books, write code, monitor posts, create music, and read resumes, you could save money by using AI instead of hiring humans who are artists, writers, programmers, moderators, songwriters and musicians, and human resources staffers. I’m getting tired of going on the social media platforms with them constantly trying to get me to rewrite my posts using AI.

On top of it Meta is getting really heavily into AI to the point where the artists who have long used Instagram to show off their work are actually leaving the platform because Instagram (and its parent company Facebook, for that matter) is using the art that they’ve posted to train its AI to make pretty pictures using other people’s work without permission, credit, or compensation. And Instagram is making it difficult for users to opt out of having their images included in the AI training program.

I’ve been increasing being alienated by Facebook and Instagram in recent years. Most people, inclufing myself, originally joined that platform to keep up with friends and family, share vacation photos, show off whatever creative projects they are working on, share the latest photos of their children and/or pets. But Meta thinks that it’s not good enough so now my newsfeeds on both platforms are clogged with posts from people or groups I don’t even follow with the message “Suggested for You.” You don’t know how tired I am at having to wade through posts featuring circa 1964 photos of The Beatles or The Rolling Stones from accounts that I don’t even follow in order to get to the posts from my friends and family. Only to have to wade through more posts featuring circa 1970 photos of Led Zeppelin or vintage photos of Judy Garland when she starred in The Wizard of Oz in order to get to more posts from friends and family.

But it’s Meta using AI on both Facebook and Instagram instead of humans that really gets to me. Over the past year I would get notified that a post I made on either platform six months earlier was removed but they won’t say which post was removed or why the AI moderators waited six months to remove those posts.

But then it got even worse. A couple months ago Instagram notified me that its AI moderator had removed an image that I had uploaded six months earlier was removed because it promoted suicide. That totally mystified me because I don’t remember making a post like that. Worse, that message provided no thumbnail of which graphic they removed so I literally can’t see if they were correct in thinking that it promotes suicide. They even sent a message telling me that if I needed help because I’m thinking about suicide, I should call the national suicide hotline.

Then there were the times when the Facebook app had put me in a one-hour restriction because Facebook felt that I had been liking too many posts in a certain amount of time so I couldn’t like any more posts during that restriction time.

All of these things have been discouraging me from even spending much time on Facebook and Instagram. But now I’m at the point where I am fed up with Meta.

Today I was logged out of the Facebook app on my phone. I had a hard time with logging back in until I managed to get the app to accept my password. Then I got a message that initially said that nearly five months ago I had posted sexually explicit material pertaining to my personal sex life. That mystified me since I have never even discussed my sex life with anyone.

Then I got another message saying that five months ago I posted adult sexual exploitation material on Instagram. As a result my account has been restricted until July 9. I won’t be able to create ads, create live videos, or start or join calls.

Those restrictions don’t bother me because I haven’t created ads, created live videos or start/join calls and I usually don’t use those features at all when I’m on Facebook. But being accused of distributing adult sexual exploitation material did bother me. At least Facebook had the decency to include the thumbnail of the offending material. It was a meme that I had uploaded on a private group that is devoted to liberal issues and everyone in that group are liberal to left leaning. We trade memes all of the time, which resulted in people laughing. It’s a private group, meaning that you can only see posts if you join that group.

Here is the meme that Facebook claims that has adult sexual exploitation yet it waited nearly five months before removing it. (Or its AI moderators removed it.)

It was a photo of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin together that had been altered in Photoshop by someone (I don’t know who) to include Trump wearing some bongdage gear. Both men are fully clothed. This meme is Facebook AI’s idea of “adult sexual exploitation.” What’s also laughable is that an early message suggested that I had shared an image based on my sex life. I’m not in that picture at all and I have never met either Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin in real life (and I don’t ever want to personally meet either of them).

And why on earth is Meta waiting five or six months to have its AI moderators take down my posts from Facebook and Instagram? No one had complained about those posts. If my posts are that harmful for people to look at, would it make more sense to take them down sooner than wait five or six months?

Between Facebook and Instagram shoving content that I don’t subscribe to in my face, Instagram scraping users’ images to train its AI to create images based on them, and having AI moderators removing posts I made five or six months ago, I’m done with Meta.

I’ve made an appeal to their decision regarding that five-month-old post but I’m not expecting anything to come of it. Even before this incident happened I had one of my Facebook friends made a post about a new social network for artists that he had just joined called Cara. My recent scrape with Meta is making me take a serious look at joining Cara, especially since it has been rapidly gaining new members due to Instagram using other people’s images for its AI.

From now on I’m only going to go on Facebook and Instagram no more than once or twice a week just so I can catch up on what my friends and family are doing. I won’t be uploading any more images unless they are photos or videos of events (such as street festivals, parades, and protests). I also won’t be uploading any more original art on those platforms because I don’t want them to serve as training materials for AI.

If it weren’t for my friends and family, I would seriously leave both Facebook and Instagram because I have become so fed up with Meta. But I’m definitely cutting back on my time and contributions to both platforms. (And don’t even get me started on Cambridge Analytica.)