This morning, Tuesday, I received a message that I was banned from Facebook for 30 days. There might not be a connection to those posts, but there is unmistakable irony.
The post which Facebook found objectionable was a picture of Nazi-era Christmas tree ornaments, one with the head of Adolph Hitler, another with a swastika on it. I posted it as a response to someone who shared a picture of a couple dressed for Christmas, the woman with a "Don't Tread On Me" shirt, the man with a Christmasy looking sweater with an undeniable Rebel Flag design to it. The message I sought to convey was how easily Christmas can be co-opted by politics of the worst kind. For the record, I am in no way sympathetic to Nazis, one reason being is their penchant for silencing opposing viewpoints.
I make no bones about it, I use Facebook to connect with people who have political beliefs similar to my own. But even more than that, I use it to engage people in political conversations whatever their positions. I have Facebook friends across the political spectrum and I've always striven to be as open-minded and respectful as possible. I'd like to think if you were to ask any of my Facebook friends of whatever political bent, they would agree.
But now I have been banned from Facebook for posting a picture that I came across while researching a book I am working on. I saved it because it was so striking to me, the notion of Christmas being transformed into a holiday to reinforce Nazi ideology. The idea that a nation of decent human beings could be corrupted in this manner should serve as a warning that it could happen to us, that we are not so unique that we could not fall prey to a government that tells us what to think and how to behave. A government that feels it is their right and duty to go through our correspondence, censor what they find objectionable, and punish those who share unapproved messages.
This is an inconvenience to me, but its repercussions run far deeper than that. For one thing, I am in the process of writing the third novel in a series, which started with the lead-up to World War I and is now in the lead-up to World War II. It deals with Nazis! There is no way around that. I have invested the better part of my free hours for the last three years researching how Nazi Germany came to be, not only because it is the subject of my book but because it hits so close to home in the current political climate.
The main point I want to touch upon now--and I will be dealing with many in the next month as I blog daily while serving my Facebook jail sentence--is that I now have the fear that something I post will result in another 30 day stint in the hole. The image that I had in mind for my upcoming novel would have been a contrast between a peace symbol and a swastika, but now I have to seriously rethink that since the presence of a Swastika might trigger a ban.
But the worst part of it is that I do not know the rules of the game, and nobody is required to tell me. Or you. Or anyone. The rules are arbitrary, controlled no doubt by algorithms that cheaply but inefficiently determine what is permissible discourse on Facebook, which is for me and many others the principle platform for building communities in the 21st Century. To have the thought that anything we might post could lead to our banishment from communities in which we have invested so much time and energy must surely cause most people to adhere to posting only the most banal of posts.
Social media has the potential to bring people together, I have seen it first-hand. I have been a part of communities where people from across the nation and even across the oceans have gathered together in the same geographic location just to have a meet-up. The power of social media and the internet to bring people together and bring about positive change should not be ignored because of the possible negatives. Sadly, as with all other aspects of society, those who are looking for obscene profit and those who desire undue power are shaping the internet to be what they want it to be. I am doing what I can to take this technology and do good with it, as are many others, Sadly, I fear that is a big reason those with wealth and power are willing to take away our voice.
More to come in the next 30 days.
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