Why Jesse was temporarily kicked off facebook.

Hi everyone that I haven't been able to talk to, comment on, share dialog with, RSVP to your events, etc. In case you were wondering about my absence, (I might be flattering myself there), I tried to log in to facebook the other day, only to be told that one of my comments had been flagged as inappropriate, and I was banned from facebook until further notice. I was then given a list of community standards, so that while I was in time-out, I could think about what it is I've done.

The list of community standards lays out a very reasonable list of things that are forbidden on facebook. They include things such as threats, violence, hate speech, threats of self-harm, harassment, and the like, things that any social network should take seriously.

So what did I do? Did I threaten someone? Did I relentlessly harass them? What evils hath I unleashed upon the Face of the Book?

Wait for it...

WAIT FOR IT...

I said that women don't deserve to be raped.

That's right! For shame! For violent-threatening-harassing-hate-speechy-shame!

More specifically, I responded to a woman, (whom I will not name and did not know), on the public page of a celebrity who recently ignited controversy with her rape-blamey comments later printed in the New York Times. This was the first and ONLY comment that I made amongst the barrage of similar conversations happening on the page.

The woman in question, who I will henceforth refer to as Albus, (for no other reason that it was the first name that popped in to my head), was explaining how she could sympathize with the celebrity in question, because when young girls out drinking in the presence of boys get raped, society has only the parents of the girl to blame. She also referenced several “shameful” things that women do to make themselves less worthy of respect, including but not limited to making sex tapes.

Here's Facebook, reminding me and telling you what my ONLY comment in its entirety was.

 

Yep, this is what got me banned. Thanks, facebook!

Now, let me clarify something real quick: this is NOT the first comment in this discussion that brings up rape or mentions the word “rape.” This was the ENTIRE FOCUS OF THE DISCUSSION. There is nothing in this comment that could possibly have been interpreted as offensive or controversial that was not also in the comment I was replying to.

So, let's take one more look at the criteria for being banned from Facebook, and see which rule was being violated. Was any part of this comment threatening? No. In fact, there are no negative implications toward Albus in this comment at all, unless you count saying that she's wrong, which isn't something one can ban, last time I checked. This is dealing entirely with the argument at hand; at no point here do I come close to being threatening, harassing, or verbally abusive. Was any part of this comment explicit or graphic? No. Even if the mention of rape would make someone uncomfortable – again, this was the entire focus of the conversation before I made this comment. In fact, as far as I know, no other facebook users in this conversation were banned (including, by the way, the people who were praising the rape-defenders). Could any part of this be interpreted as hate speech? No, unless saying “women don't deserved to be raped” is somehow some sort of hate speech I didn't know about, in which case there are even more bizarre problems at work here.

Any objection to my comment could only be political in nature. Let's be clear here: somebody has been allowed the authority to successfully block me from facebook, simply because this person did not agree with what I was saying.

There are obviously a couple of things that are very messed up about this. First of all, it is frustrating and disturbing that the moderators of facebook would not even bother to read the comment in question to make sure that I've actually committed the offense I'm being accused of. It is frustrating and disturbing to realize that, at any point, a person could immediately and without warning lose access to his/her most frequently used tool for communication, event planning, etc. It goes without saying that facebook is a pretty essential part of having a social life for most twenty-somethings living in Kansas City, and (not to make it sound too much like a first world problem) it is unfair that this could be taken away at any moment, with no opportunity to challenge the decision.

And that's the other thing that's really messed up about this - during the initial process there is no system in place to challenge or question the reasoning behind being banned. Even after the initial period of not being able to access facebook at all, there has been an extended period of time during which I could log in to facebook but not post or comment on anything. (The stage I am still currently in.) And while I was finally allowed, at this stage, to send a message to the Facebook staff expressing my complaints, there was STILL no explanation or deadline in place to tell me how long this period of banishment would last.

There are number of things that facebook needs to fix here. It is unreasonable that this could happen in the first place because of a political disagreement, and that there was apparently no step in the process during which the moderators actually checked on the validity of the complaints being made against me. It is also unreasonable that this could happen without warning and with no opportunity to challenge it.

And most disturbing of all, is that this could happen to you. Or you. OR EVEN YOU!

Dunh dunh DUUUUUUUUUNH!