It looked like just another time-wasting error message:

This video was removed from YouTube. Only you can see this video.

So, YouTube rejected my latest video. Hours of work, and if it’s not one thing it’s another, and which editing software betrayed me?

But it was not, apparently, a software issue. My 8 minute video/slide show of our NPR/Trump-free vacation focused on our grandchildren at Rehoboth beach, two mini golfs, two water parks, two “amusement” parks, an indoor throw paint at your brother room, Yogi’s frozen yogurt shop, a driving range, glass blowing, and an Orioles home game. We were frazzled but free—temporarily relieved of our rage at What’s Going On.

Back to YouTube:

Content that shows minors in compromising positions that may lead to unwanted attention, isn't allowed on YouTube.

So, I was a purveyor of child porn. A threat to the community.

This was devastating and amusing in the same instant.

I assumed (correctly) that only the beach shots had the slightest potential to offend, hence my immediate, haughty appeal in which I pointed out that the video was done on a public, highly populated beach with many sets of parents watching, and was in the lifeguard’s direct line of sight (we set up next to them — rip tides). I did not, therefore, see how kids in ordinary bathing suits splashing in the surf was problematic. I concluded, diplomatically, that only a badly programmed bot or an idiot could think otherwise.

A tad defensive. But after countless identical videos of the same offspring on (the same!) beach and yogurt shops, etc., It was shocking to be censured.

But by whom or by what?

YouTube’s near instant rejection of my appeal confirmed that it was a bot. Perhaps one with thin silicon skin, and certainly on a mission:

We’ve looked at your content again carefully, and have confirmed that it does violate Community Guidelines. It will not be available on YouTube. We know it may be disappointing, but it’s important that we keep the YouTube community protected.

I quickly uploaded my video of a string quartet (fully clothed), which passed through uncensored, so at least I wasn’t on the community’s No Fly list.

Then, after a half dozen edited submissions and rejections, I narrowed the “problem” to a stretch of our 8 and 10 year old grandkids playing in the water, sun bouncing off their bathing-suited bodies on the public beach. I deleted those clips, and the video was immediately accepted. As a control, I reinserted one of the clips, 9 seconds worth, and the video was immediately rejected.

It was a relief that the rejection was algorithmic and not personal. But while I didn’t feel the personal shame of someone accusing me of shooting child porn, I felt the oppressive weight—the impenetrability and judgmental rigidity of AI’s spawn—Artificial Morality. The bot’s (well-intentioned) but mechanical, machine-learned standards combined with its appeal-proof mechanical, machine-learned control over what is allowed, experienced, and learned, echoed the oppressive weight of our censuring, redacting government.

I was angered that my snarky appeal landed like paper against concrete—worse than rejected, neither noticed nor felt.

I amuse myself with snide comments to computer voices while on hold and then realize how futile and silly it is to pretend I’m resisting when I’m just talking to myself. But intense rage and resistance are not “silly” when aimed at a government which, among so many other things, drags people off the street with autonomous, robotic brutality and without redress.

YouTube’s forced redaction of parts of my video was a jarring reminder that whether we are glued to the news or glued to the grandchildren, those in power are mechanically, ruthlessly, forcing us into an appeal-proof future.

Unless we stop them.