The Not That Social Network

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sarcastic Canadian, in want of amusing himself, will end up in Facebook jail." ~ Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice & Internet Trolls

A word before I start: there's cursing ahead, but you're used to that from me, and it's warranted.

Of course it happened again. The new year was barely three days old and the hammer came down on yours truly. As has happened before, and will no doubt happen again. I was tossed into Facebook jail. This of course is for something that never violates their 'community standards'- to which I say who actually oversees those community standards- and as always, there's no real appeal, nothing but silence out of them. And so I find myself locked out, biding my time, working with a priest to dig our way out. The priest looks a lot like Richard Harris and keeps talking about a treasure that he knows about.

So I get turfed for things that never violate their standards. All while they just shrug at reports I make of white supremacists and hate mongering bigots uttering what actually constitutes hate speech. Oh, sure, you can ask for a review of that decision- and I can tell you that several of my asked for reviews are still pending for over a month- but the result will be the same from Facebook. A shrug, a go to hell, and the middle finger raised. It's not so much getting turfed that annoys me- I make limited use of a secondary account- it's the rank hypocrisy of treating me like this while letting hate mongering bastards just get away with it. Every single time.

So you can imagine I'm not that sympathetic to the site. What is it that got me turfed out this time? Well, it was an insult geared towards a politician. The premier of my province of Ontario. I referred to him in a media discussion as 'white trash.'

Is that rude? Yes, perhaps. Is it racist? No.

I'm white. He's white.

And he definitely is white trash. I'm just stating the truth.

Because that premier is Doug Ford.

Leader of the Progressive Conservative (now there's a contradiction in terms) Party of Ontario. Whose entire previous political experience consists of one term as a belligerent city councilor in Toronto alongside his brother, the former mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford, who made headlines for his crack addiction and stupidity. Doug was his chief enabler, a fellow jackass, jeering bully and thug, and complete fucking moron. Rob died of cancer- one of the few times in my life I've been happy to hear someone died- and Doug managed to weasel his way into the leadership of the Tories, despite four years of proving himself unfit for any public office.

I can tell you that the fact that this party permitted this odious, ignorant, vile excuse for a human being to take over the party and turn it into his goddamned personality cult (because that's all the so-called Ford Nation ever was) is unforgivable. Beyond unforgivable.  

I will never even consider voting for them again. They could hold a gun to my head and threaten to pull the trigger and I still wouldn't. 

When I say he's white trash, I mean it. 

Back in the tumultuous days of the Ford boys and their reign of blunder in Toronto, one of the many articles to come out included suggestions that Doug was a drug dealer back in the day- an allegation that he threatened to sue over but never did. He expresses himself like a grade ten drop out- there is no indication of a thoughtful brain at work. He claims to be a successful businessman- but his family business, started by his father- has no public investors, and so its financial state is a secret. I'm personally convinced the bastard is going to (if he hasn't already started) pour public money into his company to prop up the damage that he and the third idiot Ford brother Randy have done. 

Aside from the family wealth (a legacy of his father, who apparently cheated a business partner back in the day, and without which he and the rest of his degenerate siblings would have never gotten anywhere in life), Doug Ford is white trash. Stupid, ignorant, blustering, thuggish, no-class, disdainful of education and critical thought. He's surrounded by members of provincial parliament who know exactly what he is and don't seem to care. This would be familiar to my American readers; basically Doug Ford is Donald Trump on a smaller scale without access to nukes- a complete fucking idiot who has no business being a dog catcher, let alone a government leader. Both of them, in the end, wealth or not, are white trash. Both of them are thin skinned pricks holding grudges that go back years. Both of them are miserable fucking bastards who are an insult to the human race. Gutter vermin. Scum. People who will only do this world any good one day when they are no longer in it.

So I got turfed out for calling Doug Ford white trash. To one of his supporters. Pointing out the simple reality that his devotion made him part of the die hard personality cult. This bothers me on another scale- it's shielding a politician from criticism. Not only the politician, but his followers. 

I mean, come on. If anyone in this world should have to face the full measure of criticism, it's politicians. But according to their supporters, not a Doug Ford, and not a Trump for that matter. Oh, how dare you speak up against our Great Leader, they say. And they're the ones who call us snowflakes, while screaming bloody murder when you point out their idol's unfitness to serve, or other facts.

Wake the fuck up.

So yes, I get turfed once again- oh, sure, you can ask for a review of this, and I did- I wrote something out explaining my reasons, but I fully expect it won't matter. Given that the fucking morons who act as Facebook community standards moderators haven't bothered to review any of the other items that I've flagged for a second look in terms of reported remarks in over a month, they're not going to even look at mine. And even if they do, say after this suspension is actually over, and they realize that they shouldn't have suspended me in the first place- a "whoops, I'm sorry" just isn't going to do.

Mark Zuckerberg claims that he wants an open, free social network, but one where hate speech isn't welcome. 

Bullshit. 

Because when you let racists have free rein to say whatever the hell they want, that's enabling hate speech. 

Mark Zuckerberg's actual idea of free speech is "your freedom of expression is whatever I decide it is." I've said it before, Zuckerberg, you've created a fucking monster, totally unaccountable to anyone, treating its users like garbage, mining their data, acting without responsibility, and letting hate mongering fucking bigots get away with everything. And now you're shielding inept politicians from the criticism they deserve. And for what?

So be it, Mark. It's bullshit like this that will, in the long run, spell an end to your social network and your place in the world. Your two faced fucking hypocrisy in the face of reality. 

I mean what I say right now, Fuhrer Mark: if you were dying and the only thing that could save you was a blood donation from me, I'd refuse. And then I'd tell you to fuck yourself.

Breaking Out Of The Big House

Well, that's done. I'm free and clear. Out of the joint. On the lam. Released from the cooler. Yesterday I was released from thirty days in stir (otherwise known as thirty days of totally wrongful and unjustified suspension) from Facebook Jail. Or as I like to call it, the Chateau d'If. It was time well spent, mind you. This American pilot was in his cell throwing baseballs against the wall and asking what I know about moles. An old priest was helping me dig my way out and making mention of a treasure in a place called Monte Cristo. And Morgan Freeman was narrating the whole escape sequence.

It had been quite awhile since my last suspension, but I've been suspended before from Facebook. Each time it was for violating their so called "community standards". Each of those times I would swear up and down that I never came close to violating their community standards. That said, Facebook offers no avenue of appeal, and offers only silence to any objection to a suspension. They throw you out without so much as a second thought and never respond in any meaningful way. In the long run, that sort of thing is going to wind up destroying the site. Just putting that out there.

In those thirty days, I was restricted to viewing only. No posting, no likes, no messages. I know I've missed several birthdays. During a previous suspension, I even missed my own birthday- the height of irony, getting the automatic message from the dirtbags who suspended me in the first place: a happy birthday greetings from Facebook. 

This particular time, as I mentioned in a post earlier this month, it was for insulting a member of Ford Nation (come to think of it, a previous suspension had been for insulting another Ford Nationite). But the remark in question didn't come close to violating their community standards. To be honest, if you were going to throw me out, the other guy's remarks were worse, and would have warranted the same. But no, if you're a repeat offender (totally unwarranted, again, I'm just saying), Facebook tells you in their own way to go fuck yourself and tosses you out for a month. Or more. 

The community standards, of course, are a joke, a two faced hypocrisy. I've lost track of how many times I've reported remarks that have crossed the line, and yet in Facebook's opinion... "that does not violate our community standards." I've seen white supremacists, racists, bigots, and all sorts of hate mongering filth get away with whatever they want to say. Take this, for instance. 

"Whites are always gonna be the dominant race and everyone is hating on that fact. Call us racists all you want, fix your own situations before blaming the whites for ur problems (see Africa)"

That comment comes from an accountant of all things in my home town. And yet Facebook finds that comment perfectly acceptable. A comment that a white supremacist would love. Let's face it, the guy is a white supremacist. We've got a few of those extremist organizations up here too, unfortunately.

But he gets a pass from Facebook, which persists in throwing people out for no just cause, without so much as an opportunity to object or argue against it. It is nothing more than rank, two faced hypocrisy.

I know where the impulse to be snarky with jerks, twits, and knuckle-dragging buffoons comes from. The plain fact is that I spent far too much time being civil to assholes (the various exes of my sisters come to mind, and let's be honest, there are good reasons I'd prefer to never speak to my sisters themselves either, so they qualify for the title too). And that was all for naught.

So these days I don't see the point in being civil to assholes and biting my tongue.

Especially when it's so much more fun treating them with the derision and contempt they deserve.

I suppose it's just a matter of time before I get suspended again, and surely there'll be a betting pool running on how long that takes. I'm not surprised when it happens. This is the nature of what the site has become. It proclaims itself a social network and yet proving to be anything but. It throws one person out without cause, while giving free rein to hate mongerers. Sidewinding, two faced, sanctimonious hypocrites.

To Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the hypocritical howling jackals at Facebook, I can only sum up things in this way.

Digging My Way Out Of Prison

I'm ranting today, and there's some swearing involved, but hey, it's warranted.

So here I am again, locked out. Or locked in, depending on your point of view.

I’m in Facebook prison. Again. The latest occasion if you keep track of them as they go by.

This of course has happened before. I log in and get a brief message with the one comment that I got flagged for, and the message tells me I’m suspended for thirty days because I’ve violated their “community standards.” There is no appeal. There is no response from Facebook when I complain. And in each case, I have always strongly felt that I never came close to actually violating their precious “community standards.” The remarks I got flagged for each time were snarky, but never crossed the line.

I put those in quotation marks, because frankly, they’re a joke. Facebook claims it wants a respectful community, and yet it tosses people out for not really violating their joke of a standards list, while letting others get away with things that do cross the line. They not only cross the line, they stomp all over it, kick it in the arse, and set it on fire.

This time it happened in late July. Here in Canada, there was a news article about one Michael Ford, the nephew of the late and utterly unlamented crack smoking drunken bastard of a former mayor, Rob Ford. Michael (Mikey, as I’ll hereafter refer to the twit) was elected by the demented constituents of Ward 2 in Toronto to serve as their councillor. I call the constituents there demented for good reason- these are the people who have elected the Fords in one form or another for over ten years.

First it was Rob himself, serving as city councillor for years on end, regularly putting his foot in his mouth, sneering and showing himself totally unfit for public office. Then when the big thug won the mayorship (which still baffles me to this day), his brother Doug was city councillor for that ward. Doug was just as dumb as Rob- which of them was the stupider pretty much depended on which of them was speaking at any given moment. Both of them were sneering, uncouth, vile bullies, socially inept, filled with loathing and bigotry, and totally lacking in self awareness. For years on end the Ford boys made a spectacle out of Toronto, from Doug’s excuses to Rob’s addictions to their mutual verbal vomit.

These two, like the rest of the family, would be absolutely nothing if their late father hadn’t made himself a whole lot of money. They’d have ended up being nothing more than the drunks at the corner bar, griping every night about how everyone else was getting ahead in life but them. They showed no sense of real talent, skill, or intelligence, and spent time alienating pretty much every other member of council, to the point where Rob’s mayoral powers were largely shifted to the deputy mayor.

Flash forward to the re-election campaign. Rob was diagnosed with cancer- while usually I might feel sympathetic in such cases, the way he and his family blatantly used cancer to score political points was for me the absolute last straw. It was a slap in the face to anyone who's lost family to cancer. Anyway, he got sidelined, Doug took on the mayoral campaign himself, and blissfully lost, while Rob still ran for his old council seat. Which of course he won. Mikey, their useless prat of a nephew, changed his surname before the campaign to make himself a Ford, and ran initially as a school trustee. And with Rob’s death this past spring (he’s presently in Hell, complaining about how there’s no crack, vodka, or hookers), Mikey decided to drop out as a school trustee (I wonder how someone who probably didn’t even finish high school and shows next to nothing in the way of being literate is actually qualified to even run for a school trustee) and ran in a byelection to fill his uncle’s council seat. And of course he won.

So that was that. The day or two after that, I left some snarky comments about the Fords and their demented cult of followers at a couple of spots on Facebook. Ford Nation, as they like to call themselves, is nowhere near what it once was. And yet the stupidity of the die hards remains firmly in place. This is the same pack who spent years blindly following two brothers who showed themselves time and time again unfit for office, whose family thought of themselves as a dynasty instead of the inbred pack of drunks and druggies that they are, who brought repeated embarrassment to not just a city, but an entire country. They supported with absolute conviction a man who was a misogynistic bigot, a wife beating bully, a thug who misused and abused the office of mayor. And they never learned one damned thing along the way.

Ford Nation is, well... stupid.

There are some people in this world who aren’t that bright. But they know they’re not that bright, and so they get by through life being generally quite pleasant and affable.

And then there are the blithering idiots.

Ford Nation is full of blithering idiots, totally incapable of seeing reality for what it is, having no idea what fitness for office means, and spending their days wasting perfectly good oxygen, all while utterly convinced they’re right. Despite the evidence and the proven record that shows they’re wrong. I wonder what the colour of the sky is in their world. Probably soaked in booze and illicit substances.

I can think of another such blithering idiot. I’ve occasionally referred to my idiot ex-brother-in-law in comments. Cro-Magnon Mike, as I think of him. No doubt Mike thinks the Fords are wonderful. Mike is the sort of guy who surely never got out of high school with a diploma. He’s a perennial moron, but he has no idea of that simple fact. He’s a bigot, a loud mouth, an argumentative jerk, and a blowhard who turns everything into an argument.

I spent years on end biting my tongue, keeping my mouth shut while Mike would blather on about whatever, all in the intent to keep peace in the family, as opposed to telling that particular sister’s bad choice in spouses just what I thought of him. I made the same mistake for the same reason with my other sister’s seemingly endless string of degenerate boyfriends, each one this month’s latest love of her life, each one a variation on the same theme of jerks, drunks, and loud mouths. I kept my mouth shut, and ultimately it was a mistake- one that cost me dearly in the long run. I’ve learned quite a lot from that mistake.

Mike and the string of degenerates were all variations on that very same theme. They were the same thing that the die hards of Ford Nation are: assholes.

Which brings us to the asshole in question who I was arguing with. One Robert Cadden of Brampton, Ontario (Brampton being a cesspool of stupidity in my province- Cro Magnon Mike lives there). He’s a big Rob Ford fan, and took objection to my pointing out some simple facts. Such as the fact that Mikey Ford isn’t qualified to be a city councillor or a school trustee, not even to hold a door open. Such as the fact that he’s nothing more than a puppet for his thug of an uncle Doug and demented grandmother Diane, both of whom still think the Fords are destined for political greatness. So I got snarky. And I got turfed for something that didn’t even come anywhere near the “community standards” Facebook boasts about.

What else is one to say about a person who’s blind to years of proven stupidity by a high profile clan of crackbillies who have shown time and time again that they’re incompetent and an embarrassment? What can one say, if that person continues to believe they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread?

Well, I’ll sum him up in four words, albeit four words I didn’t use at all in the comment that did get me sidelined.

Robert Cadden: fucking idiot.

Yes, that’s right, that’s exactly what he is.

Not that he’d ever see this. I doubt Cadden reads anything more complicated than the sports page of the Sun “newspapers.”

The writer in me wouldn’t mind making use of the name for a waste of space character, perhaps with the name Ronald Cadden, all while maintaining the fucking idiot aspect of the real Cadden as I go along. Never annoy a writer. They’ll write you into a novel someday and kill you off.

And so there we have it. I’m turfed until at least the end of August, though the last time I got suspended, I was still out long after it was supposed to end. Meanwhile Facebook lets white supremacists, general bigots, and other hate mongering pricks get away with, well, whatever they want.

Case in point: one Real Christopher D’Cruze, a loudmouth racist bastard who fancies himself an “immigration consultant” in the United Kingdom. That’s listed in his LinkedIn profile. A business with his initials in the title, which to me implies he’s the sole employee and he runs it out of his garage.

D’Cruze is a known dirtbag with a history of racist remarks, particularly around the Facebook page for the Toronto Star. I have repeatedly reported bigoted remarks that he has made down for a long time. Each and every time, the same automatic reply has come back that Facebook doesn’t feel that remark violates their community standards. Among the worst of his remarks was about the death of a toddler, who fell out of an apartment window, when his sneering remark was “who cares? He’d have just ended up a ghetto rat like his kind does.” More recently, in regards to an ongoing situation in South Sudan, his remark was “it’s their culture. You can’t expect any better from their type of human.”

And this hate mongering rat shit of a man is an immigration consultant?

I use the word man very loosely- D’Cruze is a despicable excuse for a human being.

Surely there’s a professional body for immigration consultants in the United Kingdom who’d like to know that one of their own is an outright bigot who spends his time spewing his loathing about other races.

Anyway, Facebook claims that the racist bullshit that comes from a guy like this (and so many others) doesn’t violate their “community standards”, while tossing out people who have never once violated their community standards.

With no appeal, no opportunity to defend themselves, and no response.

I’ve said it before- Facebook is nothing more than bloody hypocritical.

Crap like this is going to destroy the site in the long run.

And so there we have it. I’m stuck in Facebook jail for the time being. I might be back at the end of August. Or the end of September if the bloody site decides I should do twice the suspension time again.

In the meantime, I’ve met this old priest in Facebook jail. He’s told me he’s digging his way out, and mentioned something about treasure and a place called Monte Cristo. We’ll have to see where that goes.

Those Who Are About To Die Salute You

A new month is underway, and while March came in like a lamb in these parts, it may go out like a lion with a three week long blizzard over half of North America (oh please oh please oh please....)

Today I have a mixture of twisted and eccentric images for your amusement.