A series of violent and disturbing posts erupt onto a beloved social media platform. Inspired by violent AI accounts that have been popping up without monitoring or review by large media platforms. Reader discretion is advised.

Content warning for mentions and depictions of: murder, violence, sexual violence, self-harm and suicide, child abuse, and animal abuse

~

A man’s body is splayed awkwardly upon an ugly coach, both of them soaked in blood, his mouth agape. He is old and ugly like the couch. His face and chest are slashed open. It took very little for a man so old and pointless to die.

Four beautiful teenage girls, all pale Eastern European angels, the oldest one only sixteen, are fashioned in short skirts, long socks, and flesh-toned bras, and are all lined up in front of him.

The cameras are rolling. It’s time to dance.

It is a dark winter evening, very little light coming through. The resolution is low, the quality is poor, and the image is fuzzy and blurred. Very few would be able to make out the man in the back at all, and very few would care to look so closely. Not when the pretty angels, the white gems of this Earth, begin to move their young bodies.

The cameras are rolling. It’s time to dance.

It’s time to dance!

~

The men take turns grabbing at the naked young woman, some wringing their hands around her throat, others slapping her in the face, others kicking her in the stomach. Their livestream goes on uninterrupted for many hours, after all seven have had a chance to pulverize her until she is a slumped over, bloody mush. They jeer in English, so proud of their great strength against this tied up woman. She lives, but then the broadcast is suspended, and little is known after.

~

A young girl and boy’s body is shown, a camera panning up and down them. They sleep soundly under the covers, snuggled up. They are young and adorable, only five and six. The man speaks in a low voice, whispering in French. This video is not available on the surface web any longer, but has been watched a few hundred thousand times in two days on the darker corners of the online world. But that is out of the platform’s hands now.

~

In China, two heads of the platform converse.

“Do you think these videos are real?”

“I see no indication of warping. The accounts all were made around the same time, though.”

“So do you think these videos were generated with artificial intelligence?”

“Didn’t I just say I didn’t know?”

“No.”

“Well, I don’t. We’ll have to analyze it further. It hardly matters if it is real or not. People think it is. And that’s bad enough.”

~

A conversation between the richest man on Earth and his inferiors.

“It’s not really a matter of if they figure it out. They will.”

“And when they do?”

“It won’t matter. It’ll already be done. We’ll have achieved what we wanted.”

~

An elderly woman screams from the depth of her bowels. She cannot be consoled. A raw turkey sits atop the stove, as her husband pulls out of the oven their beloved dog, Juniper, who has been cooked alive to a blackened crisp. She falls to the floor, weeping, moaning through tears, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I thought… I thought…”

Their grandson records them from the other room, snickering at his funny prank. He is happy to get his 67th follower.

~

Users expecting content related to their usual niches, such as novels or gardening or food or wholesome underage girls dancing, are met with video after video of gore, sexual violence, or some other distressing material. Backlash is immense, and the platform faces an 80% drop in user engagement, with 90% of them fully deleting their accounts. The ages of those who have deleted their accounts are mostly (62%) those over the age of 30; additionally, those who deleted their accounts were 70% female. This would suggest that young men make up most of the current user base. Though they already had made up a slight majority before the “December Incidents,” this difference has been noticeably intensified. Some have compared this influx of content similar to that of the live-streaming platforms [redacted] and [redacted]. Parents groups, leftwing content creators, and centrist, anti-[redacted] creators flood platforms such as [redacted] decrying the “disgusting devolution” of the platform.

Defenders of artificial intelligence deny the possibility of the videos being created with it, and if they do concede that it could be made with AI, they argue that it does not mean that AI should be more heavily censored or completely banned. Critics of AI have their rebuttals. People of neither camp claim that the existence of the content and its ability to thrive on platforms such as [redacted] is the true issue.

~

“Hey! I’m real happy all of y’all are joining my live tonight. Things have been so hard for me lately. So like I promised before, I want to show y’all how to do it, so maybe some of you can join me in heaven too. We can all play up there by tomorrow mornin’, ain’t that nice? I can’t wait. I really can’t. Middle school is so lonely, y’all…”

~

A message to all users of [social media platform] around the globe greets them one morning when they try to access the app.

“Sorry, [redacted] isn’t available right now. Due to content violations and user-generated material, all accounts have been temporarily suspended until 2027. Further updates will be provided. Goodbye!”

~Sammicakes