Straight Out Of The Facebook Cooler

A note in advance: there's a bit of foul language involved in what lies ahead. Justified in this case.

Of course it happened again. 

It was inevitable. 

Yes, I was in Facebook Jail again for thirty days.

And as usual, no matter how many times I tried to complain that I didn't agree with this and I thought it was wrong, the system said, 'we're sorry, this isn't working, try again later.' And as usual there was silence from Facebook. If it was possible to post in their Help Center (it isn't when you're under suspension) there wouldn't be answers from there. Because nobody from Facebook actually works there, or is held accountable in any way. And so I was stuck, not able to like, comment, or post birthday wishes. I resorted, as usual, to using my shadowy alter ego for the month.

Where did it all start? Late in September I was scrolling through Canadian media pages on the site. Municipal election campaigns were underway in the province of Ontario. Mayor and city council posts were being contended. In Toronto, the mayoral election included the incumbent, who won, and a series of other candidates. One of whom happens to be a white supremacist.

Faith Goldy is the white supremacist in question. A former contributor for a right wing 'media' website, (if you want to call it media; the site pretty much can be summed up as Angry Old White Guys Yelling), she had a checkered past in terms of her media assignments, contributing for a variety of publications before that website. Finally the site owner, a snivelling little spineless bastard with a mad-on for the world, even had enough of her when she made an appearance on a neo-Nazi website and fired her.  She mocked counter-protestors at Charlottesville, claimed that the police were biased against the tiki torch polo shirt wearing alt right marchers at Charlotteville (the very people who were screaming 'blood and soil' and marching like something out of a Leni Reifenstahl propaganda film).

She's used white supremacist slogans, said things that fit right in with that extremist mentality, and refused to back down from that world view. She's made it brutally clear where her sympathies lie- with the conspiracy theorists and the white power groups and the manifestos of dirtbags like Richard Spencer,  So yes, her own record establishes her as a white supremacist. Call her what you want- white supremacist, white nationalist, alt right, far right. Either way, she's a hate mongering bigot. Who has a following of hate mongering bigots.

And so she ran for mayor of Toronto. Three percent of voters in the city actually voted for her, which means there are a lot of bigots in Toronto. Enough for a few thousand votes her way. And it gave her the attention she so desperately craves. She behaved as you'd expect- disrupting a debate she was not invited to, complaining about the media who would not give her a platform for her right wing views, and inspiring a pack of hate mongering jackasses just like her to follow her like a pack of rats following the pied piper.

Where did I get in trouble for all this? In late September, one of those followers was persistently posting Faith for Mayor hashtags in multiple Canadian media pages on Facebook. I get it, fine. She thinks the way you do, says the things you say to your bartender every night about how 'those people' are getting ahead and you're not (note to the average Faith supporter: it's not them that's the reason your life is such a clusterfuck, it's you), and she's easy on the eyes, right? That's the draw for you.

So I did what I tend to do when dealing with idiots, assholes, and bigots. I treat them with ridicule, scorn, and the contempt that they so richly deserve. That's my go to response. I see a supporter of a woman who's an avowed and established white supremacist and peddler of hatred and racism, and as far as I'm concerned, that supporter is a white supremacist too. I see no reason in being polite or civil to a white supremacist. Ever. 

What did Facebook do to me? Well, for a comment that didn't come anywhere near to violating their community standards (they never do, but that doesn't stop Facebook from going to the same response), they turfed me for thirty days. This time they actually gave me an option- to write a response as to why I felt this was incorrect. I stressed that Faith Goldy was a well established white supremacist in Canada, and that by extension her supporters were as well. I noted that in protecting the individual I heckled, Facebook was protecting a white supremacist. Taking the side of a bigot as opposed to taking the side of someone standing up to a bigot.

Facebook's response? We don't care, go to hell, thirty days in the hole.

And so from that point on, total silence from Facebook. No appeals, nothing. No posting in the Help Center, no likes, no comments, nothing under my regular name. The only thing I could do under my regular name was to report things that supposedly violate their community standards. Which I did on occasion. And I can tell you that 99 times out of a hundred when I do that, the same response always comes back. "This does not violate our community standards." I've reported things that constitute hate speech in the past. I've repeatedly reported an immigration consultant of all things (once based out of Britain, now apparently in South Africa) for things that are vicious, vile, and hate mongering bigotry. Facebook claims he's fine. I've reported people threatening death or harm on others. I've reported remarks about musing on raping a woman. All perfectly fine as far as Facebook is concerned. And yet they slap me around with thirty day suspensions for things that never come anywhere near to that. It's two faced fucking hypocrisy.

During this latest stint in the cooler, one of the things I reported was a series of comments from someone  with a serious grudge against police. His comments included a series of hashtags- save a life; kill a cop. Death penalty for cops. That sort of thing. Obviously a problem just waiting to happen, the sort of person who ends up on the news someday for all the wrong reasons.

It's one thing to criticize the police. You can point out the statistics about a disproportionate number of young African-American men getting killed by police. Many of them doing nothing that would warrant getting gunned down during a routine traffic stop, for instance. You can point out the fact that so often the response of police to any accusation is to circle the wagons around their own- good cops protecting the bad ones who don't deserve protection. These are legitimate concerns that I have, and that many people would have.

It's quite another to post death wishes repeatedly about the police.

But no, Facebook thinks that's just fine. "This does not violate our community standards." As usual, that's the response I got for flagging it.

So, as usual I got put into a time out for treating a bigot the way he more than has coming. While the bigots just routinely get away with everything. And as usual there's never a response out of Facebook. It's not as if complaining about this in their Help Center will ever lead anyone. No one from Facebook actually goes there. There's no accountability, no appeals, nothing. Facebook just silences you. 

Congratulations, Mark Zuckerberg. You've created a monster. Or maybe the monster is you.

Maybe both. 

Because as long as you give a free pass to hate speech while treating people standing up to hate speech like the way I've been repeatedly treated, as long as your site refuses to actually deal with the public in a meaningful way, as long as your community standards remain persistently two faced and hypocritical, this problem is only going to get worse.

In closing, Mark, someday when you find yourself passing from this world into the next, I mean this from the bottom of my heart.

Give my regards to hell, you bastard.