Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Breaking Out Of Facebook Prison Again

A rant is in order today. Before we go any further, another word of warning- avast ye maties, there be swearing ahead! So in case your morals run to the Victorian code where colourful language is concerned, you may as well consider yourself warned in advance.


So it turns out I was back in Facebook jail again.

Again- emphasis on the again.

This has happened before.

And as before, it was a wrongful suspension.

Not that Facebook ever admits it was wrong.

It started back in July with logging in one morning to find out that I was blocked, under suspension for thirty days. The reason? One remark. One that didn’t come anywhere near to violating their community standards, but hey... as has happened before, their community standards are two faced and hypocritical.


All I did was heckle a misogynistic woman hater. A guy who frankly deserved to get heckled. One of those drooling half-wits with a mad-on for the entire world in general and the female half of the species in particular.

And for that, I was turfed. 

When this happens (and it’s becoming old hat for me now), there is absolutely no appeal. You can’t like a thing, you can’t post a thing, you can’t even post a complaint in the Help Community. The Help Community is pretty much worthless- nobody who actually works for Facebook goes there. Facebook refuses to get back to you. You can complain all you want to those automatic boxes- the ones that tell you you’re still under suspension and if you think this is wrong, click here and tell us why, thank you very much- but there’s never a reply back. Facebook is stone silent, no contact information, no customer service, nothing. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis. Niente. 


So I was stuck for a month. There’s only so much you can do- such as trotting out your shadowy secondary name to at least post links at your page. That gets tedious, what with Facebook making you write out  captchas each time (on a side note, I hate captchas). I was told I’d be able to post a message in the Help Community as of August. Never happened. I tried it once, and was promptly told I was not allowed to do so as I was under suspension. Let’s just say wasting twenty minutes writing out a formal complaint and then not having it take is, well... kind of fucking irritating. So instead I marked the time by adding a prison movie picture with snarky commentary most days during that lost month. As it turns out, even now when the suspension is over, I am now blocked from initiating any question in the Help Community. It seems Facebook doesn’t like being held to account, or criticized, or taking formal complaints in any form.


I’ve noted in previous post-suspension rants about how hypocritical those community standards are. Any time I’ve been suspended, those comments never did cross that line. And yet 99% of the time when I report a comment.... it comes back as “this does not violate our community standards.”

Bull fucking shit.

I report a comment when it does cross that line.

I report remarks that are from hate mongering bigots. Anti-Semitic scum. Homophobic zealots. White supremacists. Things that stomp all over the line of civility, decency, and reason.

Ninety nine times out of a hundred, comments that would by all rights classify as hate speech just get a free pass. That’s Facebook, saying that hate speech is perfectly acceptable to them.


Some weeks back, I reported a comment on a news story about a sexual assault case. Of anything in this world, surely that comment would justify being deleted, and the user expelled permanently from the site. The “man” in question wrote the following: “well who wouldn’t rape her?”

Read that again. We’ll wait.

How does that comment not cross the line?

Not according to Facebook, which found it perfectly acceptable. “This does not violate our community standards.”

So your “community standards” sees nothing wrong with rape. Wow.


Another recent story brought out a pretty malevolent sort of guy, who made threatening remarks to several people over the course of the thread. I reported comments he was making to one of the other individuals: “I think I’ll take a vacation up to Ontario..... and stab your whole family.”

That’s a threat. That’s intent. Granted, the fucking asshole doesn’t have the knowledge to find said person, and deep down he's a gutless coward anyway, but this is the sort of person who’s going to end up on the news someday after butchering seven strangers, and whose neighbours will say, “but he always seemed like a nice normal guy to us.”

Facebook’s response? The same old “this does not violate our community standards.”

Come on. Really?

Wake up.


Your fucking community standards are a damned disgrace. A joke. A pile of hypocrisy. You throw someone out for not violating them, with no bloody appeal, and then you turn right around and give a free pass to hate mongering garbage to spew their toxic waste.

Which leads to one conclusion- your community standards slap us around while giving bigots free rein because deep down, you agree with the goddamned bigots. You see nothing wrong with hate mongering and death threats and rape.

If you refuse to deal with people who have legitimate concerns, if you continue to treat people in such a blatantly two faced way, if you refuse to develop a real network of service to the public for your site like every other form of social media has... you’re going to end up destroying yourselves in the long run.


Mark Zuckerberg will never read this, granted. If I had a chance to speak to him, what would I say?

“Why is it acceptable to you to suspend people wrongfully while letting bigots routinely get away with everything? No pauses, Mark, no awkward ums, sideway glances, and equivocations. Just answer the fucking question.”

But there’s never going to be an answer. Because no one’s ever made him or his circle of co-founders answer the question.

Bloody fucking hypocrite.

41 comments:

  1. That seems to be common on all the social media sites. You get banned for calling out a sexist/racist. But they can say all that stuff because freedom of speech. Apparently even threats are freedom of speech as long as their from those assholes.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's so two faced.

      Zuck Sucks. Hey, that kind of rhymes.

      Delete
  2. I've never been in Facebook jail, but it's absurd that people making comments like you cited aren't being put in FB jail.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That rape statement should have banned them for life. That threats are acceptable is mind blogging, worse, but then I only use the other language when one of my characters speak.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You wonder just how far someone has to go to be expelled permanently.

      Delete
    2. This is Hilary commenting. I been researching poems and blogs and such to use as online resources for anti-bullying month which is coming up in October and found this blog and consequently this thread and your comment. In a LBGT writers group I'm part of on Facebook one of my fellow members is having LOTS of troubles ith scary harrassment from another writer who posts horrificly violent poetry about women writers. We are all trying to decide what to do since the 'poet' has NPD and is inclined towards violence. Facebook of course, has done absolutely nothing.

      Delete
    3. Someone like that will inevitably end up hurting people beyond the printed page. He sounds like a repugnant excuse for a human being.

      Delete
  4. Facebook jail...I really thought you'd be a lifer by now. But then, even OJ is getting out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's just a matter of time before they do it again.

      Delete
    2. Planning your next PB crime in advance?

      Delete
    3. I'm surprised they didn't kick me out already. I'm heckling some of the usual suspects mercilessly.

      Delete
    4. If only I could insert an image here right now!

      (And my previous message was supposed to read FB, not PB!)

      Delete
    5. Like I said- just a matter of time!

      Delete
  5. I try to remain diplomatic on Facebook, but there sure are a lot of douche bags out there (present company excluded). I'm sure there's some clever algorithm out there (basically a coin toss) to decide who get's punished.

    ReplyDelete
  6. You said it. The people who should be in trouble on Facebook get away with everything. I was banned from putting what book I was reading in my status, while a girl was allowed to create several fake accounts to bully me. She called me nasty names and even accused me of killing my grandmother. But when someone just speaks their mind about something totally random they get in trouble. It has made me consider deleting my Facebook page and avoiding the drama all together.

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  7. Maybe someone should come out with their own version of "facebook" and bring everyone who agrees with you over to it. Wouldn't that be cool?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I don't know, the complete segregation of ideas like that would be dangerous. But the total lack of accountability and the rank hypocrisy is ridiculous.

      Delete
  8. The sad part is when nice people disable their account because they are offended and you lose a friend.
    Old colleagues or school mates for example--this is or was our only connection. On another note, I was part of a thread on our publisher's site when my comment was marked as spam and the 'help' dept. couldn't help me. So frustrating. Glad you're out!!😎

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  9. Agreed! I've reported many a racist group but Facebook never does anything about it.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Nobody likes FB but seems everyone uses it. Kind of like nobody likes this orange cheato of a prez but no one wants to take the steps to get rid of him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, the latter is just a matter of time.

      Delete
    2. Be careful not to wish he'd get hit by an asteroid or eaten by Godzilla. Apparently, wishing him dead is a crime.

      Delete
    3. He'll be his own undoing, and when he leaves office, it won't be pretty!

      Delete
    4. I called him a moron and was blocked for 30 days.

      Delete
    5. It doesn't surprise me. Right wingers seem to claim that Facebook is conspiring against them, but I've seen no evidence to suggest that at all when they let white supremacists get away with everything.

      Delete
  11. And this is exactly WHY I do not use any form of social media, other than blogging, because that world is so misguided. I had to laugh when I read of the FB suspension...really. How absurd is that? Of course, since I have never used it the rules and regs were all "news" to me. And, you can be sure that after reading what happened when you commented that I will never use it. And by the way, I agreed with your comments.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Facebook puts you in jail without letting you know what your heinous offense is.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is their way. I'm just revolted with the double standard.

      Delete
  13. Same here.My comment was to an abusive poster of right wing memes whose profile looked fake
    I said "time to go back to the troll farm and get a new identiry" That is the comment Facebook found violated their "community standards" I suspect the troll reported me and a fellow right winger accepred that report as a violation.

    ReplyDelete
  14. And I am in FB jail too. 72 hours for calling out a troll. No threat or anything. Yet like you said, when I report things that are very racist they never go against community standards. And if I ask for a review, every once and a while it may actually get pulled. There moderating system is such a joke and so random.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In the end, Zuckerberg will have no one else to blame for himself when the site ends up going to hell.

      Delete
  15. Why don't we somehow start a huge action lawsuit. I am in jail and was called a bitch. Something is wrong with this picture. There is a huge conflict here that has to do with publishing and editing. Spoke with an attorney.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I just got put in jail for saying , Quote : Sounds like you don't like opposing opinions. Typical right-wing sheep. Unquote. 30 day sentence.

    ReplyDelete

Comments and opinions always welcome. If you're a spammer, your messages aren't going to last long here, even if they do make it past the spam filters. Keep it up with the spam, and I'll send Dick Cheney after you.