Deleted My Facebook Account
Posted: Sat Mar 06, 2021 7:22 pm
I have been on Facebook since 2009 and, for a while, it was fun place to hang out. You could meet up with old friends and send or receive invites to parties or events. New groups were forming all the time catering to specific issues in politics or art or history or current events and I availed myself to a lot of them.
I'm not exactly sure when Facebook stopped being fun and became a shitfest but certainly by the time Trump ran for president. I won't say that Trump caused it but he definitely contributed. At a certain point, Facebook decided that, for whatever reason, everybody needed to be clamped down on. To accomplish this, the staff unleashed a monster in the form of a stupid algorithm whose job was to police the entirety of the platform. Zuckerberg praised this horrible move and bragged about it before Congress that it was a way to keep people in line. This brag was in response to what Facebook was doing about the proliferation of hate pages in its platform. Zuckerberg's answer? In effect, "I'm punishing everybody else!"
The trouble is, this algorithm does not fulfill the objective if the objective was to keep excessive harassment and hate speech to a minimum. This is because the algorithm has no real programming and can't make an intelligent decision. It was Facebook's lazy way of policing its entire platform, which should be left up to the hosts of the myriad groups that have congregated there, to look like it was doing something remotely constructive. Zuckerberg, however, has decided that having hosts police their own pages was not enough--don't ask me why--and felt this stupid police dog of an algorithm should have more authority than any human being.
The result is chaos. When the algorithm singles you out the first time, you get your posting privileges suspended for 24 hours. The next, it's three days. Then, it's a week. Then it's a month. I don't know what comes after because I've only managed to violate these first four. My first time getting whacked was when I posted a photo of two naked Jesuses having anal sex with the caption "Jesus Fucking Christ." This was done in an atheist group. Bam! 24-hour in Facebook jail. I was informed that this pic violated Facebook's policy against posting pornographic nudity. I would have been okay with that except I SHARED the photo which was already posted on Facebook. Sometime later, I posted pic of a nun clutching her bible with come dripping from her lips all over the bible. She wasn't nude though. Nothing happened so it seemed Facebook has a clearly defined policy. Except they didn't. A woman saw my post and shared it to a page dedicated to naughty pics and was promptly whacked for a week. Once again, Facebook was being inconsistent.
On another page, I posted a photo of a woman carrying her double bass into a venue. Nothing dirty or remarkable about it. This was on a page dedicated to double basses. Facebook then sends me a warning about posting "questionable images" and singled out this photo. They never told me what was wrong with it. One of the many things I hate about Facebook is that you can't talk to any staff about anything the algorithm does. There is no one to talk to. If you try to appeal it, the same algorithm simply tells you the action still stands--too bad. I never removed the image because I was never told why it was "questionable." Facebook hasn't removed it either, it is just uselessly flagged for whatever reason. For 5 or so years since I posted it, it is STILL flagged. No explanation has ever been given and I cannot talk to anybody who could remove the flag.
On another page, a guy went on a rant that women were the cause of all the world's problems. I foolishly responded, "Okay, let's kill all the women in the world and that will solve all our problems." WHACK!! "MISOGYNISTIC HATE SPEECH VIOLATION!" Yes, my sardonic response to a misogynist was to be labeled a misogynist myself and be suspended for three days. Nothing happened to him.
On a page where you can post clips of songs you like from the 50s to the 90s, one guy posted Edgar Winter's White Trash--a big group in the 70s. He wrote that he has always loved Edgar Winter's White Trash. His comment disappeared and I didn't hear from him for a month. He came back and angrily posted that Facebook whacked him for 30 days over his post but never told him why it was unacceptable. Somebody posted that users are not allowed to post the words "white trash" ever under any circumstances. You can't use it. He had to spell out "white trash" like W%$#& T&^$# so he wouldn't get whacked even for explaining that you can't use it. "If you use it at all, you'll do 30 days in the hole," he said. Somebody else affirmed it because it also happened to them. The page had to post a warning not to mention Edgar Winter's White Trash. You can post a clip of them but don't mention them by name or Facebook will whack you for it. Stupid. Stupid.
After this, I refrained from using associated words like "redneck" and the like. But it didn't matter. In a moment of amazing stupidity, I told someone that he or she should "keep your fat face out of other people's business." WHACK! "FAT-SHAMING VIOLATION!!!!!" A week in the hole. Trying to appeal it since it was just an expression and not knocking someone for being fat led nowhere, naturally.
The last straw occurred yesterday. On an atheist page, someone posted an article about a preacher calling for gays and trans people to be killed. In a moment of a complete lack of foresight I responded (and this is verbatim what I wrote): "I'm sick of Christians. Sick of them." WHACK!!! UNACCEPTABLE LANGUAGE VIOLATION!!! 30 days in the hole. I was stunned!! How was that in any way worthy of a suspension??? It was the last straw. I immediately and permanently deleted by membership to Facebook.
It's a shame that this platform which once held a lot of promise has degenerated into this stupidity. What is the point of being in a place where any momentary lapse of their version of netiquette results in immediate suspension without any way to appeal it? I didn't try to. I don't care anymore. Facebook has turned into the North Korea or the East Germany of cyberspace. You have to watch EVERYTHING you say or you get whacked. And there is no way of knowing what they'll whack you for until you do it. You have to talk about nothing of any consequence to avoid getting suspended. It's basically a Big Brother situation. Like that Jerome Bixby short story, "It's a Good Life." You have to talk vapidly about nothing in particularly because Anthony is listening and you'll never know what he might do if he didn't like what you said. I've been sent to the cornfield one too many times. I can't take it anymore and it isn't worth posting someplace where you're constantly wary of being suspended for just about anything you say by a dumb fucking string of badly programmed software. It's like conditioning users to accept Big Brother. I picture the algorithm as a slimy, shit-covered slithering monster chuckling and saying, "You'll get used to me." No, I won't.
But, see, this isn't the only problem. Facebook whacks users like this because most of us use it for free. Who would pay just to use Facebook unless you're an advertiser? Advertisers pay and that's where Facebook makes a lot of money. So, it you're paying to use Facebook, guess what? The algorithm leaves you alone! You can say ANYTHING you want as long as long you're paying for it. Don't believe me?
Back in November of last year, Steve Bannon bought space on social media calling for Anthony Fauci to be beheaded and his head set on pikes. What happened to Steve Bannon for calling for the murder of an innocent man who was only doing his job? Youtube deleted his video and restricted his channel (although they should have deleted that too) and Twitter banned Bannon wholesale. What did Facebook do? Removed the video but left up the page. A great many users were pissed off! WE get suspended for saying almost anything and Bannon gets no jailtime at all???? For calling for murder?? Here's Zuckerberg's bullshit: "We have specific rules around how many times you need to violate certain policies before we will deactivate your account completely. While the offenses here, I think, came close to crossing that line, they clearly did not cross the line.”
"They clearly did not cross that line." CLEARLY!!! Calling for a man to be murdered and decapitated CLEARLY isn't a violation of Facebook's oh-so coherent, intelligent policy! But mentioning Edgar Winter's White Trash or saying that you are sick of Christians is just SO fucking egregious!! If Bannon posted an ad that called Zuckerberg a pasty-faced Jewish Asiaphile, he'd be banned immediately and permanently because that CLEARLY is a violation of Facebook policy. But calling for the murder of the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to the President? Meh!
Oh, and I forgot to mention something else I posted on Facebook yesterday before finding out I was suspended. I posted that Facbook was responsible for spreading hate and that it should be boycotted. I wrote that they whack all of us for bullshit to look like they are controlling hate speech while allowing real hate speech to continue unimpeded and that they do it for money. I concluded that Facebook should be shut down immediately and Zuckerberg forced to flee the country for better climes as Russia or North Korea. I'm sure that had nothing to do with why I got suspended. CLEARLY saying I was sick of Christians is what really touched their sore spot. I said that Facebook would never stop spreading hate unless we hit them in the pocketbook. I received little notice from anyone although the responses I got were from people who agreed that Facebook spreads hate and should frankly be shut down for the good of our democracy.
In his book, White Too Long, author Robert P. Jones (a Baptist pastor), whose book centers on how Christianity is THE creator and sustainer of white supremacy, singles out Facebook as the number 1 social media platform for disseminating hate. In 2018, U.N. investigators singled out Facebook for sparking the genocide of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/how-fac ... inorities/
JUST days after the mass shooting of Jewish congregants in Pittsburg, US in what has been described as America’s worst-ever anti-Semitic hate crime, online news publication The Intercept discovered it could place an ad on Facebook appealing to white supremacists.
The website said it was able to select “white genocide conspiracy theory” as a predefined “detailed targeting” criterion on Facebook to promote two articles to an interest group of 168,000 people “who have expressed an interest [in] or like pages related to White genocide conspiracy theory.”
The paid promotion was approved by Facebook’s advertising department.
The Intercept, which says it follows the protocols of investigative reporting used by ProPublica, a website set up to “expose abuses of power”, contacted the company for comment.
One day after Facebook confirmed The Intercept’s “white genocide” ad buy, the company deleted the category and cancelled the ads.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/onli ... 4ee331531d
Oh, golly, guys! We didn't know white supremacy was something bad!
Facebook bans white nationalism from platform after pressure from civil rights groups--
Social media giant said in a blog post Wednesday that conversations with academics and civil rights groups convinced the company to expand its policies around hate groups.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ ... ps-n987991
Right. Facebook never heard of white nationalism until civil rights groups and academics sat down and explained it to them and THEN they were "convinced." Facebook wouldn't have done shit without that pressure because they were busy taking the fucking money. And if you're dumb enough to think that Facebook has cleaned up their act, they have not. They are still easily the #1 purveyor of hate speech in the world of social media:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcev ... 0885496bbd
So, if you have a Facebook account, might I suggest you delete it permanently. Zuckerberg is a liar and a hypocrite. It is inconceivable that someone who is supposed to be Jewish founded a platform that has CLEARLY done SO much to mainline white supremacy, antisemitism and right wing extremism than all hate sites as the Daily Stormer and Stormfront combined. He doesn't even care if he hurts his own people--as long as he profits from it.
I'm not exactly sure when Facebook stopped being fun and became a shitfest but certainly by the time Trump ran for president. I won't say that Trump caused it but he definitely contributed. At a certain point, Facebook decided that, for whatever reason, everybody needed to be clamped down on. To accomplish this, the staff unleashed a monster in the form of a stupid algorithm whose job was to police the entirety of the platform. Zuckerberg praised this horrible move and bragged about it before Congress that it was a way to keep people in line. This brag was in response to what Facebook was doing about the proliferation of hate pages in its platform. Zuckerberg's answer? In effect, "I'm punishing everybody else!"
The trouble is, this algorithm does not fulfill the objective if the objective was to keep excessive harassment and hate speech to a minimum. This is because the algorithm has no real programming and can't make an intelligent decision. It was Facebook's lazy way of policing its entire platform, which should be left up to the hosts of the myriad groups that have congregated there, to look like it was doing something remotely constructive. Zuckerberg, however, has decided that having hosts police their own pages was not enough--don't ask me why--and felt this stupid police dog of an algorithm should have more authority than any human being.
The result is chaos. When the algorithm singles you out the first time, you get your posting privileges suspended for 24 hours. The next, it's three days. Then, it's a week. Then it's a month. I don't know what comes after because I've only managed to violate these first four. My first time getting whacked was when I posted a photo of two naked Jesuses having anal sex with the caption "Jesus Fucking Christ." This was done in an atheist group. Bam! 24-hour in Facebook jail. I was informed that this pic violated Facebook's policy against posting pornographic nudity. I would have been okay with that except I SHARED the photo which was already posted on Facebook. Sometime later, I posted pic of a nun clutching her bible with come dripping from her lips all over the bible. She wasn't nude though. Nothing happened so it seemed Facebook has a clearly defined policy. Except they didn't. A woman saw my post and shared it to a page dedicated to naughty pics and was promptly whacked for a week. Once again, Facebook was being inconsistent.
On another page, I posted a photo of a woman carrying her double bass into a venue. Nothing dirty or remarkable about it. This was on a page dedicated to double basses. Facebook then sends me a warning about posting "questionable images" and singled out this photo. They never told me what was wrong with it. One of the many things I hate about Facebook is that you can't talk to any staff about anything the algorithm does. There is no one to talk to. If you try to appeal it, the same algorithm simply tells you the action still stands--too bad. I never removed the image because I was never told why it was "questionable." Facebook hasn't removed it either, it is just uselessly flagged for whatever reason. For 5 or so years since I posted it, it is STILL flagged. No explanation has ever been given and I cannot talk to anybody who could remove the flag.
On another page, a guy went on a rant that women were the cause of all the world's problems. I foolishly responded, "Okay, let's kill all the women in the world and that will solve all our problems." WHACK!! "MISOGYNISTIC HATE SPEECH VIOLATION!" Yes, my sardonic response to a misogynist was to be labeled a misogynist myself and be suspended for three days. Nothing happened to him.
On a page where you can post clips of songs you like from the 50s to the 90s, one guy posted Edgar Winter's White Trash--a big group in the 70s. He wrote that he has always loved Edgar Winter's White Trash. His comment disappeared and I didn't hear from him for a month. He came back and angrily posted that Facebook whacked him for 30 days over his post but never told him why it was unacceptable. Somebody posted that users are not allowed to post the words "white trash" ever under any circumstances. You can't use it. He had to spell out "white trash" like W%$#& T&^$# so he wouldn't get whacked even for explaining that you can't use it. "If you use it at all, you'll do 30 days in the hole," he said. Somebody else affirmed it because it also happened to them. The page had to post a warning not to mention Edgar Winter's White Trash. You can post a clip of them but don't mention them by name or Facebook will whack you for it. Stupid. Stupid.
After this, I refrained from using associated words like "redneck" and the like. But it didn't matter. In a moment of amazing stupidity, I told someone that he or she should "keep your fat face out of other people's business." WHACK! "FAT-SHAMING VIOLATION!!!!!" A week in the hole. Trying to appeal it since it was just an expression and not knocking someone for being fat led nowhere, naturally.
The last straw occurred yesterday. On an atheist page, someone posted an article about a preacher calling for gays and trans people to be killed. In a moment of a complete lack of foresight I responded (and this is verbatim what I wrote): "I'm sick of Christians. Sick of them." WHACK!!! UNACCEPTABLE LANGUAGE VIOLATION!!! 30 days in the hole. I was stunned!! How was that in any way worthy of a suspension??? It was the last straw. I immediately and permanently deleted by membership to Facebook.
It's a shame that this platform which once held a lot of promise has degenerated into this stupidity. What is the point of being in a place where any momentary lapse of their version of netiquette results in immediate suspension without any way to appeal it? I didn't try to. I don't care anymore. Facebook has turned into the North Korea or the East Germany of cyberspace. You have to watch EVERYTHING you say or you get whacked. And there is no way of knowing what they'll whack you for until you do it. You have to talk about nothing of any consequence to avoid getting suspended. It's basically a Big Brother situation. Like that Jerome Bixby short story, "It's a Good Life." You have to talk vapidly about nothing in particularly because Anthony is listening and you'll never know what he might do if he didn't like what you said. I've been sent to the cornfield one too many times. I can't take it anymore and it isn't worth posting someplace where you're constantly wary of being suspended for just about anything you say by a dumb fucking string of badly programmed software. It's like conditioning users to accept Big Brother. I picture the algorithm as a slimy, shit-covered slithering monster chuckling and saying, "You'll get used to me." No, I won't.
But, see, this isn't the only problem. Facebook whacks users like this because most of us use it for free. Who would pay just to use Facebook unless you're an advertiser? Advertisers pay and that's where Facebook makes a lot of money. So, it you're paying to use Facebook, guess what? The algorithm leaves you alone! You can say ANYTHING you want as long as long you're paying for it. Don't believe me?
Back in November of last year, Steve Bannon bought space on social media calling for Anthony Fauci to be beheaded and his head set on pikes. What happened to Steve Bannon for calling for the murder of an innocent man who was only doing his job? Youtube deleted his video and restricted his channel (although they should have deleted that too) and Twitter banned Bannon wholesale. What did Facebook do? Removed the video but left up the page. A great many users were pissed off! WE get suspended for saying almost anything and Bannon gets no jailtime at all???? For calling for murder?? Here's Zuckerberg's bullshit: "We have specific rules around how many times you need to violate certain policies before we will deactivate your account completely. While the offenses here, I think, came close to crossing that line, they clearly did not cross the line.”
"They clearly did not cross that line." CLEARLY!!! Calling for a man to be murdered and decapitated CLEARLY isn't a violation of Facebook's oh-so coherent, intelligent policy! But mentioning Edgar Winter's White Trash or saying that you are sick of Christians is just SO fucking egregious!! If Bannon posted an ad that called Zuckerberg a pasty-faced Jewish Asiaphile, he'd be banned immediately and permanently because that CLEARLY is a violation of Facebook policy. But calling for the murder of the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to the President? Meh!
Oh, and I forgot to mention something else I posted on Facebook yesterday before finding out I was suspended. I posted that Facbook was responsible for spreading hate and that it should be boycotted. I wrote that they whack all of us for bullshit to look like they are controlling hate speech while allowing real hate speech to continue unimpeded and that they do it for money. I concluded that Facebook should be shut down immediately and Zuckerberg forced to flee the country for better climes as Russia or North Korea. I'm sure that had nothing to do with why I got suspended. CLEARLY saying I was sick of Christians is what really touched their sore spot. I said that Facebook would never stop spreading hate unless we hit them in the pocketbook. I received little notice from anyone although the responses I got were from people who agreed that Facebook spreads hate and should frankly be shut down for the good of our democracy.
In his book, White Too Long, author Robert P. Jones (a Baptist pastor), whose book centers on how Christianity is THE creator and sustainer of white supremacy, singles out Facebook as the number 1 social media platform for disseminating hate. In 2018, U.N. investigators singled out Facebook for sparking the genocide of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/how-fac ... inorities/
JUST days after the mass shooting of Jewish congregants in Pittsburg, US in what has been described as America’s worst-ever anti-Semitic hate crime, online news publication The Intercept discovered it could place an ad on Facebook appealing to white supremacists.
The website said it was able to select “white genocide conspiracy theory” as a predefined “detailed targeting” criterion on Facebook to promote two articles to an interest group of 168,000 people “who have expressed an interest [in] or like pages related to White genocide conspiracy theory.”
The paid promotion was approved by Facebook’s advertising department.
The Intercept, which says it follows the protocols of investigative reporting used by ProPublica, a website set up to “expose abuses of power”, contacted the company for comment.
One day after Facebook confirmed The Intercept’s “white genocide” ad buy, the company deleted the category and cancelled the ads.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/onli ... 4ee331531d
Oh, golly, guys! We didn't know white supremacy was something bad!
Facebook bans white nationalism from platform after pressure from civil rights groups--
Social media giant said in a blog post Wednesday that conversations with academics and civil rights groups convinced the company to expand its policies around hate groups.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ ... ps-n987991
Right. Facebook never heard of white nationalism until civil rights groups and academics sat down and explained it to them and THEN they were "convinced." Facebook wouldn't have done shit without that pressure because they were busy taking the fucking money. And if you're dumb enough to think that Facebook has cleaned up their act, they have not. They are still easily the #1 purveyor of hate speech in the world of social media:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcev ... 0885496bbd
So, if you have a Facebook account, might I suggest you delete it permanently. Zuckerberg is a liar and a hypocrite. It is inconceivable that someone who is supposed to be Jewish founded a platform that has CLEARLY done SO much to mainline white supremacy, antisemitism and right wing extremism than all hate sites as the Daily Stormer and Stormfront combined. He doesn't even care if he hurts his own people--as long as he profits from it.