A Reflection on Algorithmic Policing, Healing, and the Quiet Erasure of Soulful Creators

Updated: Jun 1

I didn’t expect to write this. But perhaps it was always meant to be written.

Recently, without warning, I was removed from a wellness platform where I’d spent years crafting offerings of mantra, movement, meditation, and meaning. My account was terminated for what was described as “fraudulent activity” — a phrase that hit me in the gut. What was the crime?

Apparently, it was this:

Too many users had created accounts and listened primarily to my content. Some of those users had subscribed. Some had looped the same tracks. Many were from the same household. And many were my family.

In the eyes of the algorithm, that looked suspicious.In reality, it was the clearest form of love and support I’ve ever known.

The People Behind the Plays

What the platform didn’t see were the humans behind the data:

My cousin, who plays my voice each night before bed to calm her nervous system.
My aunt, who bought a subscription not just to “engage the platform” but to engage me — my voice, my art, my medicine.
Listeners who find sanctuary in repetition — who return, again and again, not to game a system, but to feel something steady in a shifting world.

To a machine, these patterns looked like manipulation.But to me, they were a reflection of something sacred: devotion.

What Happens When Depth Looks Like Deception?

Wellness platforms claim to be spaces of safety and healing. But many are increasingly governed by algorithmic policing that monitor patterns, flag irregularities, and enforce guidelines based not on human understanding, but automated logic.

That might make sense in ecommerce.But in wellness? It creates a dangerous contradiction.

Because here’s the truth:

Healing is not linear.
Engagement is not evenly distributed.
Repetition is not suspicious — it’s therapeutic.

And yet, creators like me are being punished for cultivating depth instead of scale. When engagement doesn’t spread out across multiple teachers — but instead concentrates around one — it’s read as bias. As fraud. As something to be corrected.

But in healing spaces, concentration is the point.

Neurodivergence and the Comfort of Repetition

Here’s what the algorithm also doesn’t understand: Not everyone relates to the world through neurotypical behavior.

As someone who resonates with patterns common in neurodivergent experiences — especially those on the autism spectrum — I know firsthand how vital repetition is.

I watch the same shows over and over again. Not because I lack imagination, but because nostalgia soothes me.I listen to the same chants, meditations, even voice recordings, on repeat — not because I’m obsessed, but because they regulate my nervous system.Familiarity is safety. Repetition is rhythm. Constancy is comfort.

For many people — especially autistic, ADHD, or highly sensitive individuals — repeating what works is survival.

So when a system says:

“You’re only listening to this one voice. That’s unnatural.” I say: “No. That’s how I heal.”

This isn’t just about unfairness. It’s about invisibility.When platforms are built to interpret neurotypical behavior as the baseline of “valid” engagement, everyone outside that mold becomes vulnerable to misjudgment.

The Danger of Algorithmic Policing in Wellness Spaces

There is a much deeper issue here.

We are allowing algorithms — rigid, unconscious tools — to decide who is authentic. Who belongs. Who is allowed to exist in community.

And here’s what happens when that goes unchecked:

Intimate support systems are mistaken for manipulation.
Devoted listeners are flagged as bots.
Teachers with close-knit, non-viral communities are erased with no due process.

This kind of logic makes platforms safer for the system, but not for the soul.

It enforces sameness. It rewards superficial engagement. And it punishes exactly what healing requires: depth, return, relationship.

In this landscape, even love can look like fraud.

A Call for Discernment Over Detection

I’m not here to name names or burn bridges.But I am here to name what’s being quietly ignored.

Wellness platforms must choose:

Will they be governed by code, or by care?
Will they trust nuance, or only numbers?
Will they hold space for real human complexity — or reduce us to data streams and dashboard metrics?

Because when trust is replaced by suspicion, and connection is mistaken for corruption, we lose the very heart of the wellness field.

It’s not just bad for creators. It’s dangerous for those who come to these platforms seeking healing in a world that rarely sees them.

This Is Not the End — It’s a Re-Rooting

So where do we go from here?

For me, this experience has been painful — but clarifying. It has reminded me to root deeper into the platforms that honor presence over performance. That allow depth, nuance, ritual, and soul to take up space.

I will continue creating. I will continue supporting others in their path to reclaim their voice, their rhythm, their sacred way of being. And I will do so with the quiet conviction that truth doesn’t need to go viral to be real.

Let’s build spaces that recognize:

Healing is cyclical.
Resonance is personal.
And real support might look like one listener showing up every single day — for one teacher, one voice, one moment of stillness.

Let’s move beyond the algorithm. Let’s return to the essence.

Because that’s where the real medicine lives.

— Nikki Baksh