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.

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.

Nineteen Years And 500 Yards

“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it.” ~ Red

“The funny thing is, on the outside, I was an honest man, straight as an arrow. I had to come to prison to be a crook.” ~ Andy

“I believe in two things: discipline and the Bible. Here you’ll receive both. Put your trust in the Lord. Your ass belongs to me. Welcome to Shawshank.” ~ Warden Norton

“Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” ~ Red

“Couldn’t play somethin’ good, huh? Hank Williams?” ~ Heywood 

“They broke the door down before I could take requests.” ~ Andy

“You’re that smart banker who killed his wife, aren’t you? Why should I believe a smart banker like you? So I can end up in here with you?” ~ Captain Hadley

“There’s not a day goes by I don’t feel regret. Not because I’m in here, because you think I should. I look back on the way I was then: a young, stupid kid who committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to talk some sense to him, tell him the way things are. But I can’t. That kid’s long gone, and this old man is all that’s left.” ~ Red

“Remember, Red, hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” ~ Andy

In 1994, director Frank Darabont released The Shawshank Redemption, a prison drama based on a novella by horror master novelist Stephen King. It is a character study featuring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, and deals with themes like hope, the meaning of freedom, the depth of despair, and the power of friendship. The story, which for once was not a horror tale by King, nonetheless follows the writer’s tendency to set his narratives in Maine. The film opened to great acclaim, getting numerous Oscar nominations, but was a box office disappointment. However, in the years that followed, home video and cable viewings fuelled a second life for the film, which has become a beloved film among audiences, regardless of its dark subject matter.

In 1947, Maine banker Andy Dufresne (Robbins) is convicted of the murders of his wife and her lover and sent to Shawshank State Penitentiary for life. He seems certain to break- some of the convicts place bets on which of the newcomers will be the first to fall apart on their first night behind bars- and yet he doesn’t. Andy makes friends with other convicts, chiefly Ellis “Red” Redding (Freeman), who knows how to get just about anything smuggled into the prison. Heywood (William Sadler) and Brooks Hatlen (James Whitmore) are two more convicts that Andy befriends. Life in prison is hard, and the brutality is not glossed over- Andy is initially the target of a gang, while the warden (Bob Gunton) and the chief of the guards (Clancy Brown) are both corrupt and ruthless. And yet in his own way, Andy’s spirit and integrity aren’t imprisoned, and he comes into his own.

Hope is a strong theme throughout the film- in a status where one is surrounded by the hopelessness of spending life in prison, particularly wrongfully, the story strongly plays off the concept of maintaining a person’s sense of self worth. Where Red is cynical about the idea of hope, Andy believes that hope is something that can’t be caged up, that can’t be taken away, and that theme strongly underlies the entire film. Even in moments of seeming despair- Andy being at a low point nineteen years into his sentence and speaking of a dream of a Mexican coastal town- that sense of hope prevails. As harsh as a film about life in prison is, the story is uplifting, with an ending that just brings out a smile every time.

 Darabont secured the film rights from King for the story, and wrote the screenplay, investing the themes of the story into the screenplay. It turns out that Rob Reiner, who had adapted a King story into Stand By Me, had wanted to helm the tale, with Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford in the leading roles. I could see Ford as Red, but Cruise as Andy Dufresne would have been a disaster. Darabont filmed a good part of the movie in an Ohio reformatory, which does a good job of conveying the bleakness of prison life. Other sequences were done on soundstages, but the locations and staging all come across as authentic in detail, evoking a twenty year period in the mid-twentieth century, as well as the harshness of life in prison. This extends to things like props, clothing, and vehicles, all of which are of the time, and particularly to the movie pin-up girl posters which end up providing such a vital plot element as the story unfolds. Darabont also chose the ideal composer for the score; Thomas Newman’s music for the film has taken on a life of its own, infused with themes that are strongly character based, filled with humour, and celebrating freedom.

The cast is one of the best you can think of assembled for any film. James Whitmore, the late character actor, gets the part of the elderly convict Brooks, a prison librarian who’s spent most of his life behind bars. There’s wisdom and frankness in the character, a friendly sort of man who’s become institutionalized behind bars and doesn’t know what to do with himself on the outside. Gil Bellows appears as a young convict, Tommy Williams, a brash talker who joins Andy and Red’s circle of friends and as it turns out has prior prison time and information that proves vital to a great turning point in the story. As cocky as the character comes across, there’s an underlying sense of principle in him too. William Sadler has a terrific role as Heywood, a convict who tends to be rougher around the edges than Brooks, but also an inherently decent man.

Clancy Brown, who’s spent a good part of his life as an actor playing villains, gets a good role as the nasty Captain Byron Hadley, the chief of the guards at Shawshank. He’s brutal, sadistic, corrupt, and sees nothing wrong with administering beatings (or worse) to convicts to keep them in line. The character’s a bully and a thug, a thoroughly unpleasant person. While he’s entirely unsympathetic, Hadley’s a memorable character for the actor to play. Bob Gunton is another character actor who’s spent his career playing various roles, including strict and authoritarian people, which certainly factors into his role as Warden Samuel Norton. The character presents himself as a pious, devout Christian, but the man is deeply corrupt, ruthless and vindictive. He’s a sanctimonious, self righteous hypocrite, and one of the great joys of the film is watching things go completely upside down for him.

Morgan Freeman plays the pivotal role of the convict Red, who narrates the film and gives the audience their point of view character. It’s the perfect casting for the role (aside from Ford, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, and Robert Redford were also considered for the character’s casting). Freeman gives the character authority, warmth, and authenticity. Red has a richly developed voice, a bit of cynicism in his outlook on life, and a whole lot of depth. Because he serves as our point of view, his worry at a critical point in the film- he believes Andy to be suicidal- becomes our worry as well, and Freeman plays into that, bringing the character so strongly to life.

Tim Robbins is perfect as Andy, a laconic man through much of the film. He doesn’t know if he’s a murderer- the night of the murders he got himself so drunk he doesn’t remember- but he comes across as what he is- an inherently decent person who doesn’t lose hope or his own integrity as he faces life behind bars. His defiance is expressed more in a subdued way. There are moments that he seems to be drifting into despair, and it’s a wise thing as it turns out to not really see Andy’s inner thoughts- the payoff late in the film is all the better this way. He expresses his thoughts in his behaviour and his words, and so we get to know him more at a distance than we do with Red. When we see that payoff play out, in an ingeniously crafted way, it becomes all the more satisfying. Convict or not, Andy is a man whose spirit can’t be caged, and Robbins brings that throughout his performance.

While The Shawshank Redemption brings across life in prison in its brutality, with the language and violence one would expect of that, it is ultimately an uplifting, tremendously satisfying film about the power of the human spirit, the strength of friendship, and hope in humanity. It’s become a favourite of viewers after the fact, and has taken on a reputation as one of the best films ever made.

Which would have never happened had Tom Cruise been cast as Andy Dufresne, so we really dodged a bullet.

On Rare Occasions I Can Be Serious

It might help to read this first. I wrote that a year ago, and it ties into what I have to say below. I'll be back to more of my usual tomfoolery on the weekend.

Growing up, there were the odd occasions we would take a trip up to cottage country, the area called Muskoka, here in Ontario, sometimes for a few days of vacation, sometimes just for a day’s drive. On one of those trips, we were staying at a campground, and we took a drive over to a scenic tower near the village of Dorset (great place to visit, by the way). It had once served as a fire lookout, but now was open to the public. I must have been ten or eleven, and I had gone up that tower before. Going up this time, however, something went differently.

Halfway up I froze in place, unable to move up the steps. It wasn’t quite the heights that were an issue, so much as it was the sensation that I was going to fall. It was fear, a physical dread of something tangible- if you can call distance, empty air, and the notion of falling tangible- happening to me.

So there I was, frozen, one of my brothers on the stairs with me coaxing me on, and my mother down on the ground wondering what was going on. It might have been that someone would have had to physically help me back down to the ground- I have seen that since on subsequent visits to that tower, that someone just freezes up on the staircase and has to be helped down. The fear was there, and it could have kept me frozen, but I realized on some level that I’d just have to push past it, keep going up those steps despite that fear.

Scenic Tower, Dorset, Ontario

And so I did. I reached the top, to the viewing platform. Then I went down, came back up, went down, and came back up, and so on, until the feeling passed. I was fine at that point, and pushing past it had been the right way to confront a fear. In doing that, the fear vanished; I’ve been up that tower since, particularly when my parents spent several years in the area, many times, so many times that I lost count, and there was never the same problem. I have climbed, and there was never the same issue coming up. Confronting a fear head-on obliterated it.

There are less tangible fears. Things that are more elusive than the standard phobias, for example people scared of heights, snakes, mice, spiders, that sort of thing. I understand these less tangible fears too, but that’s something that I have come to understand through the therapeutic process. I have struggled for some years with depression. It is something I live with each day. I’m one of the one in five people who cope with a mental illness at one point in their lives, and this one can be managed. When I think of something else, something like schizophrenia, which afflicted a friend and requires more drastic and intensive therapy, I consider myself lucky- I don’t even need medication. Most days these days are okay- I’m feeling fine, but every once in awhile I have what I call a black wall kind of day. Or days. Churchill called it his black dog, and I do like that- there are times I’ve envisioned it as a dog, growling at me from the corner of my eye. Still, I’m a climber, so for me, it’s a black wall.

There are ways to deal with it, to push back against it, to tell it to go away. I’ve learned that through therapy.  The right kind of music helps (I recommend Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Fourth Movement, which is pure joy, or Duke Ellington’s Take the A-Train). So does recognizing the signs that it’s there, that it’s becoming a problem- you can consciously tell yourself to push it away. Being among friends helps. So does being out in nature. To learn these things though took time, a lot of working through issues, and the right person to talk to. I think of how far gone I was back when I was at my worst, and that’s what scares me: the idea of ever going back to that dark point of my life again. It’s a less tangible fear than if you have a fear of beetles or mistletoe or ravenous cannibalistic groundhogs (hey, it’s me, I can’t be completely serious), but a fear nonetheless.

 I have made enough progress though that this feeling is not something that makes me freeze up. It has required the resolve to never let myself fall that far again. It’s also required me to put up boundaries and make decisions about what I can tolerate. The two sisters who were responsible for much of what I’ve gone through have never changed, and never will. I made the decision that my emotional well being, something that I’d allowed to get shredded to pieces keeping my mouth shut all to keep them appeased, had to come first. They were not worth the cost, and I will never again allow them to bring their toxic abuse back into my life. Setting those boundaries had to be done, and I’ve never regretted it. I’m not going back to that dark place in my life.

Here’s the odd thing, and I could only see it in retrospect. Coming like that when it happened, having this all come apart on me and falling apart.... it had to happen sooner or later, and in a strange way I’m grateful for it. I needed to hit rock bottom, to come apart in that dark, bad place, to be so tangled up in depression... to see that I needed help. Too often we tend to think of therapists and counsellors as professionals only needed by crazy people. That’s not the case. Most of the time they’re who we turn to because we need help sorting through a problem in our lives, something we have to deal with. And they’re professionally trained, objective, and able to ask the right questions to get us through those things. I got lucky- the rapport with mine was good right from the beginning, but if it’s not working with one, you can always move on to another therapist or counsellor.

We deal with stresses, turmoil, and struggles in our lives, and they can seem overwhelming. They can seem impossible, and it feels like no one understands. We might even feel that there’s no way out, and we’re just drowning in that situation (believe me, I understand how it feels to be drowning in depression). One of the many things I’ve learned along the road is that it’s not a sign of weakness to ask for help. It’s a sign of strength to recognize we can’t do everything on our own, and that there are times we need help. Reaching out and accepting that is a show of strength. 

And in the end we'll be the better for it.

Benedict Otter And The Worst Friend Ever

Some links before I get started today. Norma wrote about election campaigns. Parsnip had a mix of shots at her blog. Eve wrote about positive energy. And Maria wrote about villains.

Today I've got a mixed batch of funny pics. Enjoy!