I’ve written a couple of columns where I talked about the phenomenon of unintended consequences, when the desired action creates a secondary action that was not foreseen. However when it comes to Facebook (FB) and their so-called “community standards,” I’m beginning to wonder if those standards — when people post what they feel should be the punishment for criminal behavior, and then are subsequently penalized for the comment by being placed in Facebook jail, unable to post (from 24 hours to up to 30 days) — are the intentional support of criminal behavior.
I’ve just gotten out of FB jail. A coworker was shot by some thugs because he had a stick-shift car and the carjacking criminals couldn’t drive it. So they put four bullets in his body. I posted a comment about the need for public flogging in the Daley Center plaza.
Months before, in response to the criminals who shot up the car and killed the little girl in the McDonald’s drive-thru, I posted about using tar and feathers as punishment.
Well, both of my posts violated FB’s “community standards.” But for the folks who live for social media, when that criminal element goes online and never sees any commentary about what should happen to them or what kind of punishment should be meted out, then they think what they’re doing is OK. They are empowered to continue on with their negative behavior because, in their eyes, they only see messages of prayers and not calls for them to be dealt with severely.
After my last comment expressing support for a public flogging, I couldn’t post for three days. I cannot post in a group for a week, and when I do post, my post will automatically be prioritized lower in the feed so nobody sees it. All of that, because I took a stand against criminal behavior publicly. It is time for the federal government to intervene in how FB restricts speech. Because when you contest FB actions, they use COVID-19 as the reason why they don’t have enough bodies to do an actual review. That is a bunch of BS!
If FB truly has community standards, they obviously have double standards as well. For the word that was invented from hatred is allowed to stand for years and they don’t remove it. People even include it in their Facebook names. Yes, I’m talking about the n—word.
For some reason, that word is OK and all one has to do is search for it and example after example comes up on FB. That says a lot about their community standards. Yet tell criminals they deserve punishment? Violation! Especially when the commentaries are not just random posts, but are in a direct response to posts about criminal behavior.
Facebook, you are a damn hypocrite!
