For One Author, the AI Dystopia is Already Here
Plus, Meta tells Canadian media to work for "exposure." It's enough to make me a Luddite.
It’s been a couple of months since I sent out a newsletter. (Welcome to about 50 new subscribers!) It’s not ironic, exactly, but it’s certainly weird that my last newsletter was about how to avoid being scammed in publishing, because this edition is about a different type of scam. In fact, what’s happening with tech companies and publishing/media this week is enough to make me quit social media entirely.
In mid-July, Jane Friedman hosted one of her free Sunday Business Sermons on How to Spot Publishing Scams and Bad Deals. Little did she know that, less than a month later, she would be caught up in a scam targeting her, personally and specifically.
Jane’s Surreal Tech Dystopia*
Many, if not most, of you have found me through my business mentor, publishing industry expert Jane Friedman. As the former Publisher of Writer’s Digest (among many other industry roles), Jane is the most knowledgable individual about the publishing industry, and she’s generous in sharing her knowledge. Her book from University of Chicago Press, The Business of Being a Writer, is indispensable to writers of all stripes (if you haven’t read it, consider this your sign).
Earlier this week, she discovered several badly written books on the topic of publishing attributed to her on both her Amazon Author page and her Goodreads page. I emphasize the subject matter because it’s likely an AI bot scraped Jane’s books and/or website to “create” the content—this should alarm all of us who blog or create online content. If you’ve spent any time with AI, you won’t be surprised that the writing it generated was terrible. If readers purchased these books believing Jane had written them, she would lose her hard-won credibility.
When Jane reached out to Amazon to rectify the situation, the response was roughly, “What’s the trademark number associated with your name?” Uh… You can read the story in Jane’s words here.
As her blog post, and the subsequent Daily Beast article went viral, Jane was suddenly at the center of a media firestorm, fielding interviews from around the world. On the BBC (!!), Jane was introduced as the CEO of HarperCollins. Except… that’s a different Jane Friedman (and she left HarperCollins a while ago).
Some thoughts and questions to ponder:
If you have any books on Amazon (self-published or traditional), check your Amazon Author page and your Goodreads author page regularly (maybe the first of each month). Thanks to the massive proliferation of ‘AI junk books’ on Amazon, this is another task you can add to checking your credit card statements and credit reports.
If you have not yet claimed your author page on Amazon or Goodreads, do it now (before an AI does)!
If you do find AI-generated titles under your name, The Authors' Guild (US) may be able to help. They’re an advocacy organization that offers support to authors, along with many excellent webinars and other resources.
I haven’t seen a response from The Writers Union of Canada, which is roughly the parallel organization in Canada. Maybe this is because it hasn’t happened (that we know of) in Canada yet. (In case anyone is wondering, the Writers Guild of Canada, like its American counterpart, represents screenwriters.)
As Jane has pointed out, it’s likely that Amazon took down the fake books from her profiles precisely because of all this media attention, and because she’s a leader in the publishing industry. Where does that leave those who don’t have her visibility or resources?
Lesson learned: At any moment, you might be thrust into the global spotlight, however unwittingly. Be prepared. The silver lining(ish) for Jane is massive exposure far beyond her loyal existing audience. But also understand that you may get exposure from the unlikeliest of situations.
Follow Jane on Facebook or Twitter to see how this situation continues to unfold.
*Feel free to use this as your new indie band name.
Meta Bans Real News in Canada
On June 22, Bill C-18, the Online News Act, was passed into Canadian law. This bill requires Meta and Google, specifically, to compensate news outlets like the CBC and The Globe and Mail for advertising dollars lost. The argument—which I agree with—goes something like: People get their news on Facebook and Google now, not on media outlets’ websites; therefore, Canadian media outlets are losing ad money (which is based on how many people view or click), while Meta is projected to earn $148.07 billion in ad revenue alone this year, a nearly 50% increase from 2021.
Reading habits have changed; therefore revenue has moved; therefore the distributors of the news (Meta and Google) should compensate the creators of the news items (legitimate journalists and their parent organizations).
Instead of complying and coughing up what surely would be coffee change to Zuckerberg, Meta’s response was to ban Canadians from sharing any news, regardless of source. Their rationale goes something like: “The outlets should be grateful for the exposure.” Umm… REALLY? Both the CBC and Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, have been around since 1936, or long before Zuckerberg’s parents were born.
Well gee, I’d like an angel investor to fund my writing career, and if I’m happy with their investment, I’ll give them a five-star review on Glassdoor (or, uh, wherever investors are rated). Or hey, if Jamie Oliver wants to cook dinner for me and some friends, I’d be happy to give him a glowing review on social—just think of the exposure!
(For those of you who are subject-matter experts rather than career writers, and who may be perplexed by my sarcasm: Artists of all stripes, including writers, are routinely asked to work for free aka “exposure.” Not only does my electric company not take “exposure” as payment; unless the outlet is nationally or globally known, the exposure gained is likely to be minimal.)
On the surface, this is an inconvenience at best. But you don’t have to look too deeply to see how this is a disaster in the making for democracy, because it allows fake news and disinformation to proliferate, while legitimate news sources are blocked.
What this means for authors
To me, this signals the beginning of the end of social media as the most desirable way to build a social platform—for Canadians, for sure, but also possibly for Americans and others. How can you gain followers when you can’t share that op-ed you wrote for CNN, or even that thought-leader piece on Fortune?
There are a handful of people whose business models lend themselves to specific forms of social media (like Hannah Shaw, aka Kitten Lady, who creates videos that teach people how to care for neonatal kittens.)
For most of us, though, the stronger option is to build our email lists (that’s you!). I’m building my Living the Mess list by writing articles and guest-posts for well-known outlets. Meta and Google’s news ban means that I’m less likely to write an op-ed for a major newspaper; instead, I’m looking for outlets that aren’t identified as “news.”
Zuckerberg smiles in every photo I have seen of him.
Humans are the only creatures that view the baring of teeth as friendly.
All others take it as a threat.