Monday, September 28, 2020

Silencing the opposition

 In the middle of a 3 week Facebook Ban that began on September 17. It all started when I posted this on September 3:

Kyle Rittenhouse shot a child molester, a domestic abuser, and an armed communist. He is only 17 and has completed half my bucket list.

That earned me a 24 hour ban for violating Facebook's Community standards. Then they went all the way back to July 31 to find this comment to a friend posting an article about Iran doing practice runs on a mockup of a US aircraft carrier:

I saw that. The Iranians are idiots. Maybe they should remember operation Praying Mantis.

They said that it violated Facebook's ban on hate speech and added a 7 ban. Then they went back to March 11 and found where I posted a link to a scientific study that claims masturbation increases your immune system. I believe that I made the comment that "This is why teenagers aren't getting COVID," or something along those lines. 

They added another 7 days for that one, because it violated the Facebook ban on sexual activity. 

Then they went and added another 7 days for a post that they claim violated community standards back in November, but they won't tell me which one it was. According to them, the next violation will get me another 30 days. This 3 week ban is the 5th time I have been banned this year. I was banned 3 times last year. 

Before I get any snarky comments about how it is Facebook's site and they can do as they please: I get what you are saying. It's just that I think that there are two problems with that statement:

1 The rules are not universally enforced. It seems that FB picks and chooses who catches a ban. I have had actual death threats against me that FB did not find were a problem. 

2 Which means that FB is inserting its political beliefs into its Community standards. That means that FB is not just a platform. Its policies are in fact statements of their own- they are editorializing by what they allow and do not allow. 

In my opinion, this should make FB legally liable for any statements that they allow to be posted on their site. After all, those statements are there because FB approved of them. You either allow all comments, whether you agree with them or not, or own them and all of the legal consequences that go with them. 

In the meantime, my ban continues. 


2 comments:

  1. I go two ways with Facebook.

    First is that it's worthless. Basically it's a mechanism to argue with some nob you don't know about things that they are clueless. This is why I deleted my account, used a burner account to create a new one where I simply post dumb pictures, memes, and keep up with friends and family that are still on it. I mostly lurk.

    Second, it's far past time to declare them a publisher. By curating content and comments they are defacto no longer a 'platform' and need to comply with the same laws any other media outlet must.

    I've deleted virtually all my other social media accounts. Of all of them, I think NextDoor was the most worthless. It has a yuge karen infestation, taking time away from their all important dog lost/found postings to badger me over a joke.

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  2. The rules are not universally enforced. It seems that FB picks and chooses who catches a ban. I have had actual death threats against me that FB did not find were a problem.

    I have posted worse than that and I can't get a penalty. I had a post removed recently for violation of the Community standards and not even a 24 hour slap on the wrist.

    You don't think it would be because of my raze, do you ? /sarcasm off]

    ReplyDelete

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