McCarthyism is the politically motivated practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence.
McCarthyism is alive and well on facebook. I was chatting on facebook this evening to a friend in California who I had not spoken to in years. She asked me to send a link to my blog. So I did. I copied the blog link and pasted it into the chat window and got a message.
Warning: This Message Contains Blocked Content “Some content in this message has been reported as abusive by Facebook users.”
Okay, facebook users….the exchange of ideas represents abuse? I question, do not believe and challenge conventional religion and because you are uncomfortable with the discussion you report the post as offensive.
I am more upset at facebook. This is a social networking company that was founded by the concept of the free exchange of ideas on a peer to peer platform. I understand the need to limit content to exclude pornography, child pornography, hate groups etc. But there is no notification to the user that his post has been reported. There is no independent peer review of the content to determine it is offensive and no appeal process.
I guess I have run afoul of my religious friends and now a portion of my content has been blocked. I can’t mail it out on the facebook inbox or send via the messenger. No allegation of abuse has been sent to me, no opportunity to respond, no review of the evidence. I am not going to claim that my constitutional rights have been violated…because the government is prohibited from restricting legal free speech not facebook and not my facebook friends. I again ask the question….WHY IS THE CONVERSATION SO DANGEROUS!?!
Is the way the "War of Ideas" gets prosecuted?
Firstly, I would have commented this sooner but I have been making my way through all the past posts and just made it to the latest :)
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I really don't understand why someone would be so morally offended by your blogs that they feel it is needed to "warn the world" that it may be less than Utah mainstream.
I think its ridiculous 1) that facebook didn't give you a warning/notification or something to put you on notice of their unilateral decision and 2) that one of your "friends" would actually report the link as offensive. It seems friendship no longer means acceptance of different views and opinions, respect of others, and allowing an individual to think for himself.
I believe these actions are a manifestation of one of your beginning blogs where you noted that "It is funny, atheists and agnostics have to accept religious people for who they are but religious people are incredulous at the idea that I do not accept their god or religion." To me this really seems an idealization of that quote.
It's not even me that this happened to but I find it truly offensive and upsetting that it happened nonetheless.
That said I am sorry facebook has taken this action against you.
Keep up the blogs. I agree with what you say and I enjoy learning more about you!