Someone in a social media office somewhere entered some watch words into a database to be flagged in any posts on that social media platform. Then the algorithm was set loose to troll its users’ posts. An article, which just happened to be written the day before the national election, had words in it like “tomorrow,” “worry,” “no matter what,” “trust God.” Immediately, without paying attention to the entire article and what it actually said, the article was removed.
Machines act like humans sometimes, don’t they? Do you know why? Because humans built and programmed them! How many of us have ever heard select words from a certain person and immediately made a judgment, and perhaps even took some action, only to learn later that we had taken what we thought we heard out of context?
The Bible says, “He who answers a matter before he hears it, It is folly and shame to him” (Prov. 18:13). Let us remove “folly” and “shame” far from us! Let us not assume! Let us actually listen and give the benefit of the doubt (1 Cor. 13:7)!