Thursday, March 11, 2021

CENSORSHIP VS TERMS OF SERVICE

 CENSORSHIP VS TERMS OF SERVICE: BLURRED LINES


I'm not one to go all "freedom of speech!" nonsense. platforms have terms of service and what you say vs the ability to state what you're saying is a huge thing.  But recently the lines blurred as I have now been back to back on facebook restricted probation because of two things I said. The first was that I stated that someone was  CHICKEN+ Poop Emoji  when they, in a topic started saying I was a pussy and a simp for defending the accusers in the recent Marilyn Manson allegations.  

Fine, that's considered a personal attack, I can't argue that so much, but the way I stated it sure should have been less offensive than the typical stuff that flies on Facebook.  For that I got a month long vacation.  Yeah, I was surprised by that one.  I took my time in solitary like a champ. Did it suck? Yeah, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, the platform is such a fucking wasteland that anyone should be thankful to break themselves of the habit of going on there. 

I was back for no less than 42 hours when I got slammed with another restriction. Why? Because in a topic about getting kids back into the classrooms I wrote the following   "Hoe about we not treat teachers like a daycare and we get employers to pay for child care"  Yeah, it was a typo that my phone auto corrected to a garden tool. If it's not painfully obvious, I mean to type HOW.  

I tried to correct it the moment I noticed it posted within a fraction of a second, but by then my account had been on a watchlist or some shit and it flagged it as a personal attack. Even though the derogatory spelling is HO, not HOE! and so it told me to either delete it or... nothing?  I tried to edit it with complete fail, though later I did notice an edited and correct version was posted.  

 By then the damage was done and now I was on another 30 day vacation from the social media site. o now in the last 90 days of this yea, I will be on vacation for 60 days of that. I find that rather... stupid. I mean, fuck FB as a whole, but this lack of accountability as a judge and jury seems stupid. In a time when social media connection and interaction is an important thing, I'm dying here because I can't even LIKE a comment or page or anything. I can just sit there and watch the world move. 

It's actually even worse than that. I saw post from someone really toxic on my friends list and I tried to unfriend them because in these trying times, that's the last shit I possibly need. And to my surprise, I can not unfriend anyone during this time of limbo where I can't do shit and that's just the dumbest bullshit possible.  

So now I'm just sitting here and thinking that the use of Facebook is not worth the near dictator level they have. I get it, they are over correcting themselves, but the amount of anti-vaxxer bullshit and anti-mask and anti-anything productive for civilized society that runs rampant on that site is fucking crazy for me to get zuck'ed by the two examples I have done so far. I can't even think about how in the world that makes any sense for me to be justifiably tossed in facebook jail for the things I said.  And let's be real, getting 30 days for that is a sign that I have been in trouble before. 

I have.  two other times I got zuck'ed for the dumbest shit ever. One time I got a couple of days because while in a facebook watch party of a bad British movie, I said  "fucking poofters!" and that was considered a slur and thus, tossed in jail.  The other time was in another watch party after the election watching What's Eating Gilbert Grape, I said  "Oh, post election we're watching white trash and what's eating Gilbert? Clearly illegals taking local jobs!"  in a very sarcastic nature. Because hey, I grew up on MST3K and that's just how I watch movies.  Both times I got flagged instantly and it has sucked

So using those two examples has made me just realize how fucking stupid Facebook is with their bot run police force. and now that I won't be able to post my social injustice opinions, or like a friends comment or post when I want to just makes me think that this whole fucking social network experience is fucking stupid.  I get it, it's free and the only cost is my information, but the fact that I have been zuck'ed so many times for the dumbest shit really makes me reconsider the amount of time or the amount of info I'm willing to give that piece of shit site.  

It's toxic and it's bad and I should know better. But hole fuck, I'm annoyed. If you want to slam down massive jail sentences, at least have human customer service folks who can see and tell when that offensive content is nothing more than non-offensive and more than often just sarcastic humor post. 

Will I be on FB after this is over? I mean, it will be a lie if I said I wouldn't. But this has really tainted my enjoyment of that site as there was little to no fucks given at looking at what clearly was a typo and more than that, HOE is not an insult. It's a fucking tool. The whole fact that these T.O.S are being applied in over kill fashion is fucking sickening and does cross the line of censorship or flat out ED-209 level of punishment. 

If you aren't familiar with a giant robot from robocop that takes punishment to a new level for minor crimes, the giant robot kills a CEO because they held a gun in a testing of the machine. Facebook is at that cross roads and it's failing miserably.  There's no reason for it to lay down punishments, especially during a time when social interaction is grounded in the realm of the internet in these pandemic times, like they are handing out. 

 Over all, it's only teaching me how to depend less on Facebook on social interaction and more on other sites. So fuck Facebook and fuck the policing system they have created.