Sunday, August 9, 2020

Quickies: Concerning Facebook And Its “Community Standards”

     Those who operate Facebook have repeatedly assured us that their “community standards,” and the enforcement thereof, are absolutely content-neutral. They must say this to avoid being reclassified from “content-neutral platform” to “publisher” – which would expose them to regulation. So we’ve heard it over and over.

     BUT...

     I had a Facebook account forcibly terminated despite having used it strictly as a promotional vehicle for my books – no sociopolitical nor economic commentary of any sort. I had another account forcibly terminated despite never having posted anything on it. In both cases, the reason given was "community standards." I know other persons on the political Right with similar stories to tell. There’s only one imaginable explanation.

     We also have phenomena such as this:

     If this is “content-neutral” enforcement of “community standards,” I’m King Philippe of Belgium. (For the record, I’m not King Philippe of Belgium.)

     Those of you who persist in using Facebook, whatever your rationale, are helping to sustain its practices. Remember, you’re the product: Facebook sells your “eyeballs” to the advertisers whose revenues fuel it.

     There are superior alternatives. Look into Minds.com as an alternative to Facebook. Twitter devotees should check out Gab.com as a preferred micro-blogging site. Stop supporting your own destroyers.

     (I might be back later with something meatier, but for not quite 6:00 AM EDT, this seems sufficient.)

6 comments:

NITZAKHON said...

I remember a year or so ago a Jewish group did a test. They posted essentially-identical content in two "front" facebook profiles. One, anti-Palestinian, one anti-Israel. In some instances the posts were almost word-for-word identical.

Three guesses about which got suspended and which didn't, and the first two don't count.

NITZAKHON said...

BTW putting a link to this into a short post I'm putting up this afternoon.

And I'm curious, did you remove me from your blogroll? If yes, might I ask why?

John Mrozek said...

You might want to check your source. Looks like the image might be a fake. Can't find Adam Butsch on facebook.

Jess said...

Facebook is a propaganda outlet. A less polite society would recognize the sedition, and act accordingly.

Manu said...

The political Left has proven incapable of even making the attempt at content neutrality. This would be funny - they are the ones who constantly bleat about implicit bias and use it to browbeat people - except that they control almost every major media, social media, corporate, and government outlet.

But damn, do they love to project.

Linda Fox said...

I've tried MeWe - OK, for family stuff, but too few of the people I knew on FB followed me there.

Parler - seems OK, if lightly populated.

Gab - once they got serious about getting rid of the trolls that had taken root, in hopes of bringing it down, it seems like a workable platform. I've gotten good response here from posts I linked to.

Twitter - good if you just want to shoot your mouth off. Not that much so for anything else.

I'll try the other suggestions.