Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.

Including (sigh) the em dash.

There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.

A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.

No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.

You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.

Defend the em dash.

(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)

"They tortured Greta very severely before our eyes. [...] They dragged little Greta by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others" - Journalist Ersin Celik

"Greta Thunberg, a brave woman, is only 22 years old. She was humiliated and wrapped in an Israeli flag and exhibited like a trophy." -Journalist Lorenzo Agostino

"It was a disaster. They treated us like animals." - Singer-songwriter and humanitarian activist, Hazwani Helmi

"We stayed with reverse handcuffs for 5 hours. When we went to prison, they didn't give us water, we had to drink water from the toilet." - Author Said Ercan

"When we showed our reaction, they increased their violence even more. They tried to keep us under constant pressure in prison, waking us throughout the night and changing our locations." - Doctor Osman Cetinkaya

The quoted statements above are what we know from individual activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla.

The words of Aycin Kantoglu are important: "We actually experienced a little bit of what Palestinians go through."

She is correct. They were denied clean water and medicine, kept awake, moved from place to place, starved, dehumanized, and had their bodies used to generate Israeli propaganda. They endured this terror for days. This is terrible. And this is only a glimpse of the terror that Palestinians have endured.

My friend Fadel (@fadel-danii) and his family have been denied access to clean water and starved for months. They have been forcibly displaced over and over again. They are kept awake with the sound of bombings and the insects and animals that get inside their damaged tent. He has struggled for two years to afford his medications.

They cannot simply return home at the end of this suffering and be treated for their injuries, because their house was destroyed, their healthcare infrastructure and doctors are constantly under attack, their land is being killed, their water polluted, and there is no clear end in sight.

Fadel started this fundraising campaign to afford travel to a hospital that could perform surgery to remove shrapnel that pierced his body during the bombing of his family's home. His campaign was verified and shared by @90-ghost and @a-shade-of-blue, and was vetted by @gazavetters (#197 on the gazavetters spreadsheet). That was early summer of 2024. It has been over a year since then, and he has still not raised these funds.