All in all, I am still a great fan and devoted Facebook user, because I envision the effort similar to how Mark Zuckerberg sees it: a vast opening of communication and dialogue, both of which are truly vital in our evolving 21st Century Democracy.
But something else far more strange and even sinister is going on, which I don't understand, and which Facebook Executives seem unable or oblivious to correct, respond to, or even deal with.
I am a very law abiding citizen. I strictly observe the rules, the laws, the ordinances, and the regulations, wherever they are clear and/or posted in our society. That is the problem: on Facebook, nowhere are they ever posted. I have queried the well-educated executives of Facebook many times, both in personal messages and in FedExed letters, and all of these fine folks educated at Stanford Law, Dartmouth, Harvard, NYU, Berkeley, and Columbia, have never answered once.
I realize they are very busy with apps, inventions, speeches, pontificating, and dining in the wonderful corporate cafeterias which are so well known in Silicon Valley.
Consider this: do an internet search for Facebook telephone numbers and none of them will work. This corporation with what how many? Two billion users? and not one accessible telephone number! Perhaps this is by intent, with so many geniuses not wanting to be bothered by the vulgar rabble that use their services?
"Chuck" from the Facebook Help Team wrote this:
There isn't a direct phone number that will connect you with Facebook support. You may be able to submit a request via email or chat from the business resource page, but this option isn't available for everyone. If available those resources can be accessed here: https://www.facebook.com/business/resources/?ref=u2u
Getting thrown in Facebook Jail is not as bad, I am sure, as a regular jail in the United States, but when your First Amendment rights are usurped, abrogated, and stomped on, you have to wonder where this is all going.
The Founding Fathers felt that Freedom of Speech was important enough to make the First of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights, along with Freedom of the Press and Freedom to Petition for a Redress of Grievances. Maybe you sign something in starting on Facebook that quietly revokes your Freedom of Speech in participating in this social media which is really just a gigantic private corporate network, like many corporations have EULA agreements to protect themselves.
In any event, the appeals process is a joke. No matter what you have to say when they restrict your group posting, the response is always the same: "Thank you for your feedback." Sometimes, you get a notice saying that such and such a post appears to be spam; you say it isn't, and then they immediately reply that we have reviewed your post and found that it doesn't violate Facebook's community standards.
What a joke! I have many times seen Facebook pages that are outright ads for prostitutes which clearly state what they will do and what they won't do, in no uncertain terms, plus how to make a private message to make a date and consummate the deal. I complained, and got messages back that these posts were examined and found not to violate Facebook's community standards.
Sometimes, if people don't like you or your message, they will make a report, saying that a particular post is spam, or insulting, or a host of other negative words. This was done in the primary campaign in 2016 with great effects by Hillary Trolls, who were organized into what was called The Clinton Social Media Re-education Team.
The night before a vital primary with five elections in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Maryland, they posted child pornography on the first pages of at least seven of the largest Bernie Sanders group pages. Then their shills or compatriots complained about pornography, and all seven or more pages were shut down for at least six hours. This was devastating to most of the members to have an important group page totally disappear the night before a major primary election, but even more so who were using the pages to arrange rides to the polls, etc.
The culprit in the Clinton campaign was identified, and there was even a Moveon.org petition to the FBI asking that that particular young man be prosecuted for posting child pornography, but somehow that disappeared and dropped off the agenda of those who could have taken action. Facebook was unprepared to deal with it, and maybe they are better prepared for the midterm elections in which even worse dirty tricks will no doubt occur, with all of the millions of dollars they have spent on new apps and new software to ostensibly prevent such occurences and all related Fake News.
About the Fake News and the Russians controversy which hit the fan about a month ago: I noticed in my Advice and Strategies group that there were so many daily posts of obviously fake news, always beginning with "Breaking News" and some breathless announcement of something so obviously fake and absurd that if you googled news, there was nothing whatsoever anywhere else on that subject on the internet. The posters were almost always from Macedonia, Serbia, or Russia, and it seemed clear that this was some concerted effort organized by the lower apparatchiks in the KGB/GRU.
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