Letter From Facebook Jail: Day 9

The Excuse For Censorship

No matter how convinced I am of a narrative, I always take time to listen to reasoned opinions and uncomfortable facts that run contrary to my convictions. If I did not take the time to do so, I’m afraid I would fall back on lazy and/or emotional thinking. Let your emotions take control of your ability to reason and you are in serious danger of being manipulated by others who are only too willing to feed the narrative that speaks to your emotional needs.

I bring this up because I am going to discuss the reason, or should I say excuse, used to justify a sweeping tide of censorship. In truth, as corporations and those who use the military to further their interests overseas grow more powerful, and internet communication between ordinary citizens has grown more sophisticated, the need for censorship was inevitable. There was just no way that the powers that be could continue to make life more unmanageable for the average person while increasing average person's ability to work with his fellow man/woman.

Those who control the narrative pushed it an amazingly long way through propaganda alone. By bringing out an articulate African American with style, they were able to extend the narrative for one last go round. In a lot of ways, simply knowing that we had elected a black president spoke to our beliefs in the innate goodness and unstoppable progress of our nation. Nobody else but Barack Obama could have pulled off eight years of Americans feeling good about themselves, while in real terms things were continuing to proceed in the way they had under George W. Bush. And Clinton. And Bush. And Reagan. The illusion of progress ended with Obama. With the narrative of progress played out, a new narrative of fear and outrage must be woven. And with fear and outrage would come the unfortunate but necessary call for censorship.

But first, an excuse would be required. 9/11 went a long way in forcing Americans to give up on ideas like privacy, but given that the Patriot Act was pushed by a Republican administration, a lot of Democrats were leery of assaults on our civil rights. And besides, freedom of speech had long been a main tenant of the liberal class, who fought against warning labels on music and proudly announced during National Banned Book Week that they were reading 1984 or Lolita. Something special would be required to have liberals cheering for censorship, something that would appeal to their fear and loathing rather than their intellect. Enter Donald Trump.

Donald Trump’s being elected president was not met with stoic acceptance by supporters of Hillary Clinton. Liberals were in no mood for self-reflection when it dawned on them that the American public, at least in the states that mattered, would rather reject the reliable running play up the middle and instead choose to try a Hail Mary pass to the receiver that was so incompetent that nobody bothered to guard him. When the bumbling oaf managed to hold onto the ball and take it over the goal line, nobody on the losing team was willing to accept that they lost fair and square.

Imagine it’s the Super Bowl, the other team comes from behind and scores at the last second, and you realize you will have to wait another year and go through all the agony of the season for you to even hope to get a chance to win the big game. You’re not exactly going to be in a rational state. Now imagine someone in the recall booth says the guy who caught the pass had his feet out of bounds. Does your heart not leap at the prospect?

Now imagine the anonymous guy in the replay booth tells you the guy’s feet were clearly out of bounds, and the only reason it was ruled a reception was that the guy who called it a touchdown was handed a big wad of cash from a Russian mobster. Are you going to call him a liar?

A lot of you people are going to want to believe, especially when The Fox Channel, who will be losing a lot of football fans now that the season is over, uncritically accepts what the guy in the booth is selling.

Never once will they show the replay, but that won’t matter to you. You know in your heart of hearts that you didn’t really lose that game, that you were too good and noble and the receiver was too incompetent to make that catch fair and square. And besides, The Fox Channel wouldn’t be bringing it up if it weren’t true. They have reporters there that met with the guy in the booth and they all swear that he saw what he said he saw. Even though they themselves didn’t see it. You just have to believe the guy in the booth. Americans would NEVER mess with the sacred game that is the Super Bowl, only the dastardly Russians, with wanton disregard of all that the Super Bowl entails—The Puppy Bowl and the Clydesdale Horses and the Halftime spectacle—would stoop so low.

And so the opportunity that the forces of censorship have been waiting for has arrived. People who care so much about their country that defeat has aroused their emotions at the expense of their better nature. In the heat of the battle, they’ve abandoned one of the very principles they were fighting to defend, the idea of free speech. The idea that truth, if allowed to battle it out on the playing field, will win out even over the best-crafted lies. The Left, which I had always considered the team that would fight for freedom of speech even when the Right was willing to make exceptions, is now—if not the driving force—at least the willing accomplice of the push for censorship. Of course, there’s a really good reason for it. There are always good reasons to be found when betraying sacred principles.

And by the way, it’s a stupid game, I hate the team that won, the guy’s an oaf that doesn’t belong on the field, but his feet were in bounds for once. Instead of complaining that the other team cheated, maybe you should ask why your team benched its star player.

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Letters From Facebook Jail: Day 8

The Artist In The Age Of Social Media

Around the time that I was finishing up the first draft of my first novel, I started trying to figure out how I could get it published. While until recently there really was only one option—find a publisher—my research led me to meet many people who were self-publishing and making a good income doing so. After weighing the options, and mainly being impatient enough to want to get my work in front of readers instead of sitting on desks of uninterested publishing houses, I opted to self-publish.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many advantages to having a publisher and a team of professionals making sure your work is as good as it can be. Many are the times I wistfully think of how much easier it would make my life to have someone do the layout for book covers, have people be responsible for proofreading, editing, marketing, etc. But I learned from other writers who had gone the traditional route that the job of marketing is, for most books, mainly in the author’s hands. Publishers are in the game to make money, not to advance the literary culture. I kind of knew that already, but it was nice to have it told to me by people who had been there.

The reason I chose to take the self-publishing route more than anything, though, was the desire to stay true to my own vision rather than be forced to change things by someone who just didn’t understand what I was trying to accomplish. I leave open the option of one day finding a traditional publisher, but if I do I want to be in a position of power where I can prove that I understand my audience and what they want to read, rather than conform to the formula of whatever is in fashion at the moment.

I knew this would not be easy. I knew it would take years to build up a catalog of work. At least equally important, I learned from others the necessity of having an internet presence. Blogging, Tweeting, networking, these were all things I’d have to do in order to build an audience from scratch simply by writing about the things I was most passionate about. In truth, it has been more difficult than I’d hoped. But I’ve come to appreciate the journey even more than the goal itself. Where once I would have considered myself a writer because a publisher gave me their approval, I now feel myself to be one because of the time, effort, and diligent search for truth I have put into my art. More than that, I have heard from people who have related to the thoughts I've expressed. At last I feel I can call myself an indie-writer and take pride in that label.

But the long struggle to build up a group of people willing to regard my opinions as worthy of reading has hit upon an unexpected snag. In the last couple of years, censorship has become a reality in social media. Anyone who is at all involved in anti-war activism is aware of the clampdown on those who advocate for peace, point out the horrors of war, or suggest that our next attempt to overthrow another nation’s government will cause untold suffering. The most obvious, of course, is Julian Assange, who sits in jail as his physical and mental health deteriorate. Then there is Max Blumenthal, a journalist for the Gray Zone who was recently arrested (in a SWAT-team-style apprehension) for an alleged assault charge relating to his coverage of the siege of the Venezuelan embassy. Any indie journalist will tell you that questioning the stories that are used to promote militarily involvement in another country will get your video demonetized on YouTube, if not banned. And then there are the countless people I’ve heard about and know personally who are being banned from Facebook for sharing information that is contrary to the official pro-war agenda.

Let me also remind you that as I write this, I am serving day 8 of my 30-day ban from Facebook. My crime was sharing a picture of Christmas ornaments from the Nazi era, one of which had a Swastika on it. I shared it not because I’m a fan of Nazis but because we all need to be reminded of what societies are capable of turning into. And let me tell you, censorship is not a good sign of where we’re headed.

Over a year ago, I came across the story of Peter Van Buren. An author of several books and someone who speaks frequently against war, Peter had managed to collect an impressive amount of Twitter followers. I don't recall the number, but I remember thinking it must have taken in him years of hard work to amass so many followers. Peter was permanently suspended from his Twitter account. I do not know exactly what the reason was, and it is impossible to speculate because all traces of his account have disappeared. He was not merely banned, he was vanished. 

This sort of thing must give artists pause. While most of us want to stay true to our vision and beliefs, at some point we start questioning whether compromise might be preferable to not being heard at all. Many artists are fearless and respond forcefully against such tactics, heedless of the costs. But many are rather fragile flowers that will wither under such conditions. It will do no good in the fight against evil to make a world where artists are not encouraged to blossom, to be open and honest and reveal those thoughts they have been nourishing within. 

I am currently writing book 3 on a series that has a very anti-war message. Whereas the first book dealt with the leadup to World War I, and the second book dealt with the war itself, the third book deals with the leadup to World War II. This will unavoidably involve Nazis. Researching this book made me come across the picture I was banned for in the first place. The book cover I had planned involved an image of the Earth with a Swastika behind it on one side, a peace sign on the other. I have to seriously rethink my cover now for fear that if I share it on social media, I might get banned for the image that’s on it. And part of me fears it is not the image of the Swastika they are most concerned with but the peace sign.

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Letters From Facebook Jail: Day 7

Freedom Of Speech...If Corporations Say It's Okay

In times past, much of public life was conducted in the public square. Should someone feel the need to share something with his fellow citizens, he would literally get up on a soapbox to address the people who were there. Assuredly, a good amount of them were cranks, and a good deal more were simply annoying, but by and large, it was an accepted practice. If the speaker was speaking nonsense, the people wouldn’t hesitate to talk back to him, as one would a performance one did not appreciate. In this way a public speaker could be booed off the stage, as it were.

Walmart is probably the closest thing we Americans have nowadays to a physical public meeting place. The next time you are at a Walmart, try this experiment: stand up on an empty packing crate, try speaking your mind to fellow shoppers, and see what happens. I’m guessing your behavior won’t be tolerated for very long. You see, Walmart has bought the property where the public square once was. And was given a tax subsidy to do so.

Facebook is the virtual equivalent of the public square. The only difference between the public square and Facebook is that a corporation decides who your message goes to and what you are permitted to say. It is like a public square where Mark Zuckerberg rents out megaphones to those who can afford them and shouts into a megaphone at those who are not approved by Facebook.

There are other places you can go to speak of course, places where mega-corporations are not deciding who will be heard. But few people ever go there. Just as the public land has been mostly bought up, so too are the prime internet hotspots controlled by corporations that have interests in spreading corporate narrative. You still have freedom, it just doesn’t mean much anymore.

The authors of the Bill Of Rights sought to protect our freedom of speech. The fact that the First Amendment specifically states that it protects our freedom of speech from government and not corporations is because our Founding Fathers could not have imagined the kind of power that corporations now wield in our society. In fact, they were rather careful not to give undue power to corporations in the first place. The power that exists now in the hands of corporations is beyond anything our Founding Fathers would have dreamed of. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it state that the rights of corporations were paramount in the minds of those who wrote it. Clearly, clearly, they were concerned with the rights of individuals.

To say corporations have the right to silence you is to say the rights of corporations supersede the rights of individuals. Which is to say that the rights of capital supersedes human rights. As it now stands, you have the right to the pursuit of happiness, so long as your happiness does not conflict with the interests of corporations. Should your pursuit of happiness be in opposition to the pursuit of profit of a corporation, even a corporation that does not pay any taxes, guess whose interests are going to win out?

It’s pretty self-evident that corporate interests would want to control the means of information dissemination, isn’t it? For the same reason they spend billions of dollars on advertising, it is in their best interest to control what information we receive. Jeff Bezos didn’t buy The Washington Post because he saw newspapers as a growing market. While Facebook is a different situation, it is still in the best interests of corporations and those who most profit from them to insure social media is in the hands of billionaires, because to be in the hands of billionaires is to be under the control of billionaires.

We need democratic media. If we do not have that then we cannot pretend to have democracy. It might seem somewhat paradoxical to state that if we want open and democratic media we have to speak up for it, but it is perhaps more clearly understood if it is stated that should we neglect to demand our rights, our rights will surely be taken from us. 

Corporations DO respond to the people. But they do so in the same way wolves responds to people, because their interests are the same. They are by nature predators, and they will take everything they can from you. If you are not vigilant, they will sneak up while you are not looking and take from you everything they can. Do not delude yourself on this essential point. The only difference between a wolf and a corporation is wolves do not seek to control the means of communication.

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Letters From Facebook Jail: Day 6

There are certain narratives that go unquestioned in Corporate media. There are certain explanations, that if you start to think openly about them, appear not merely untrue but absurd. I therefore present to you some of the more bizarre ideas the media has presented to us without ever seriously questioning their bizarreness. And let me remind you, you heard about it on social media.

-Early in Barack Obama's Presidency, he came out with the Cars For Clunkers policy. The idea is that people could bring in their older but still perfectly good cars, and they would be destroyed. These people would then be given what would amount to a down payment on a new car, funded by tax-payers (themselves) so that they would then have even more personal debt and less money for savings. This was an attempt to stimulate an economy that was destroyed by lenders. In what kind of Bizzaro economy do we exist where destroying perfectly good products in order to go into debt to buy unneeded goods makes sense?

-After 9/11, we were told the most patriotic thing we could do was go shopping. George W. Bush told us this and nobody pointed out the absurdity. Imagine following Pearl Harbor if FDR were to tell the American public the most important thing they could do would be to go shopping. Rather than conserve our resources, we were told to consume them. No tin drives or paper drives for us.

-The idea that The Dow Jones is an honest reflection of the health of the economy or our planet. The DJIA is flashed across the news screen in real time throughout the business day on news channels, as if a 10 point fluctuation means something to the average worker. In the last decade, The Dow Jones Industrial Average has done nothing but point out how much money the 1% have, so much that they don't know what to do with it but buy up more stock. Meanwhile, the environment is being destroyed as the Dow rises. No hint of eventual climate catastrophe can be seen in the magic numbers, as the Dow continues to break records.

-The idea that mainstream news is “real” news. That news can only be official when it is owned by a corporation and receives money from corporate advertisers. This, by definition, means that only corporate news is considered credible. And corporate news, by its very nature, will always put corporate interests above the interests of people. Not so oddly, this point is never brought up on corporate media.

-On a related note, the idea that Julian Assange is not a journalist but Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity are. Because Julian Assange is not receiving a paycheck from a corporation.

  

-The idea that NATO is an agency that works for peace and democracy. NATO is a military alliance that exists to advance the interests of those within the alliance, principally the United States. Its mere existence lessens the democratic aims of the United Nations and its founding principle of sustaining peace through democratic means.

-The idea that Conspiracy theories are the domain of the demented. We are told that either conspiracy theorists are knowingly lying in order to win support for radical internal groups, are created by foreign powers to weaken your trust of the government, or they are the product of social losers sitting in their mothers’ basements. Most people have a shared understanding of what the word theory means. It is an unproven set of assumptions that seem to fit well together and might point to a greater truth. Similarly, we all know what a conspiracy is, it is when two or more people get together to plan and act in secrecy. To think that people conspire together in secret is somehow an absurd belief is...absurd. We know that it happens. All the time. To automatically accept explanations to unusual occurrences (e.g. the suicide of Jeffrey Epstein) is not rational behavior but the response of a indoctrinated cult member. Considering the facts of a possible conspiracy does not make one crazy, it makes one capable of looking into a matter without committing to one specific interpretation. And speaking of conspiracy theories, 

  

-The idea that $100,000 of Russian Facebook posts, only 39% of which were posted BEFORE the election, should in any way be a subject of conversation, let alone an unprecedented 3 year obsession. This is the grandaddy of all conspiracy theories, and the only reason it is not called a conspiracy theory is that those who are pushing it also happen to have control over the media and the intelligence agencies. Instead, they use the word "collusion". Look up the word "collude" in the thesaurus sometime and tell me what synonym comes up first. And on a related note:

-The idea that conjecture and narrative are now worthy topics of discussion in news shows. Rachel Maddow's show has survived off of that for...has it been three years already? 

So once again, let me be clear that there are in fact dangerous ideas floating about on the social media. The good thing about social media, however, is that few people take things they read on the internet as gospel truth. Most people, when reading something on the internet, seek to corroborate the narrative and conjecture by looking for a logical argument and indisputable evidence. Certainly not as many as we like, but we are all learning social media literacy as we go. We are, on average, far more sophisticated than we were a decade ago.

Establishment media, however, is able to rest on its reputation, so that it is capable of putting forth narratives without convincing evidence. Because they have a fancy set, and because they have airtime on a network, they must be credible people doing honest work. Again, not to harp on her too much, but take a look at Rachel Maddow as an example.

But news institutions can no longer be pointed to as bastions of responsible news. Take a look at Mother Jones if you want to see a publication whose reputation has been worn to shreds. The fact is, the only reason any news agency ever had any credibility is because they had credible journalists in their employ. Name me one journalist in the mainstream media. A few still exist, Matt Taibbi comes to mind, but they are working outside the mainstream much more than they are within it. And I fear their days within the established media are limited.

If you want to find a journalist with integrity, you are far more likely to find one outside the mainstream media. Very many of them are respected establishment journalists who have had to find a place outside mainstream media in order to do their job with integrity. Examples of this are Chris Hedges, Greg Palast, and Krystal Ball. Many more are making a name for themselves by reporting stories that are not being covered by establishment media, people like Kyle Kulinski, Max Blumenthal, Michael Tracey, Sam Sader, Jamarl Thomas, and too many more to mention.

Check them out while you're still able, while there are still alternatives to the official narrative. Each will tell a story similar to mine, of how alternative voices are being throttled subtly and otherwise. I'm afraid their ultimate success or failure will not be determined by their integrity and courage, but on our choice as skeptical consumers of news to speak up for voices outside the corporate media. Please don't be afraid to step outside the mainstream enough to view things from another angle, and please find the courage to speak about what you see.

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Letters From Facebook Jail: Day 5

Trying To Hold Back The Inevitable Change

I finally got around to watching the Sasha Baron Cohen speech where he argues for censorship of social media. Well, part of it anyway. Part of me couldn’t help agreeing with him when he was describing how hateful ideas are allowed to spread in an un-policed atmosphere. But the better part of me kept asking, “Instead of trying to battle the hateful narratives, why aren’t you helping to build a better narrative?” Because a better world is not brought about by tearing down all that is bad, it is brought about by ambitious, beautiful, truthful creation.

Cohen defends the work he has done, saying that by going under cover he uses characters to expose the inner darkness in the human psyche. He pretends to be a Kazakhstani in order to lead people in a anti-Semitic song. He pretends to be a homosexual at an MMA fight in order to expose whatever homophobia exists within the crowd. I don’t consider myself very knowledgeable about Mr. Cohen, but I don’t find what he does to be elevating.

For one thing, the line between what is real and what is staged in Cohen's work is very blurred. How many people in a given crowd are plants that are there to incite the crowd in whatever direction Cohen wants them to go? The impression I get from watching his work is that he does not wish to expose the unpleasant underbelly of American politics so much as get a laugh at the expense of the uneducated. I'd like to point out that social media has had no part to play in their lack of education. 

For me, Sasha Baron Cohen is pretty representative of the media he feels should instruct society. At no point while listening to Cohen talking about the dangers of social media (read free speech for non-sanctioned voices) did I ever once hear him question the official media. Nowhere does he blame it for building Donald Trump into a celebrity for the last thirty years. Nor did he mention the media’s incessant coverage of Candidate Trump at the expense of Bernie Sanders. The choice he sees is between the status quo and inevitable fascism. Only CNN and MSNBC, only Trevor Noah, John Oliver, and Sasha himself, are worthy of steering humanity to the best of all possible futures. Like most everyone else in corporate media, there is little self-reflection. I guess when someone is paid to apply your makeup, there is little need for a mirror.

But the official, the sanctioned, the approved, the corporate media, has done more to promote fascism and mix fact with fiction than could ever be achieved by even the most ardent of hate groups on social media. Most of the hate speech you find on social media is from those who have been raised on corporate media, a media that feeds ignorance, kills empathy, and sanctions violence. The heroes our media has given us solve problems with guns. It sanctifies all violent actions by wrapping them in the American flag, and never fails to support whatever war our government is pushing. The media creates a landscape where intelligent and respectful conversation is not to be found and where violence is inevitably the solution to every conflict. If this is not a breeding ground for fascism, what is? It teaches us that every talent, from cooking to dancing to surviving on an island, is a competition where only the strong and ruthless claw their way to the top. Your goal is not to cooperate and coexist, it is to survive and conquer. Fascism, much? Seeking to silence hate speech on social media is like cutting at the head of the hydra while the corporate media heart remains untouched.

Corporate media is not a solution to any of our problems, it is the problem for which we must find solutions. Solutions will only be found outside the corporate media, can only be found by those unwilling to confine themselves to the approved talking points the media tolerates.

There are many intelligent and fearless voices that will not be found in corporate media. The messages of Caitlin Johnstone, Jimmy Dore, Danny Haiphong, Glen Ford, Aaron Maté, Greg Palast and Glenn Greenwald (just a few of my favorites) are shared by caring citizens on social media to spread facts and viewpoints that never see the light of day on a mainstream media intent on fomenting hatred for liberals or conservatives, depending on which media you consume.

Of course, there is risk involved in change. There is the potential for things actually getting worse once the established narrative is overthrown. But we have to understand that the established narrative is speeding towards crisis on multiple fronts and it has no answers to any of the problems. It cheerleads our reckless steps away from discussions and agreements with other nations regarding nuclear weapons, it ignores or downplays the environmental destruction our economic system is at the root of, turns a blind eye to homelessness and incarceration. It excuses whatever takes power away from average citizens and gives it to powerful interests, saying it is done in the name of freedom. Corporate media is, in short, a fantasy world. Its cinema is juvenile and violent, its music crude and sexual. Its reporting is non-factual, angry, and intolerant of dissent. The only voices allowed to speak are those in the media and class bubble who are utterly disconnected from the lives of the common citizen.

Change can only come from outside that bubble, and those within the bubble, clueless as they otherwise might be, are at least aware of that. And so they are busy attempting to silence voices that give the lie to who they are and what they are doing.

Social media gives a voice to the voiceless, provides community to those who can find no source of community in a media that is decadent and pushes consumerism as the solution to humanity’s problems. Undoubtedly there are unsavory interests on the internet seeking to garner support for their opinions. As bad as they may in fact be, they are not the biggest threat at the moment. If tomorrow actual fascists were to take control of our media, I cannot think of a single news reporter or talk show host who would not show up the next day and read the script put in front of them. We already have a media that glorifies war and violence, is mostly silent as the police become increasingly militarized and unaccountable, and wishes to silence any voice that disagrees with the official narrative. Corporate media is not the cure for fascism, it is fascism in a fairly advanced state.

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Letters From Facebook Jail: Day 4

Baby Steps In The Path Of Martin Luther King

When I realized I was banned from Facebook for a month, I contemplated doing a daily reflection on corporate ownership of the media and the silencing of the voices of average people. The title “Letters From Facebook Jail” just sounded good to me. It wasn’t long before it occurred to me I was borrowing from a title used by Martin Luther King Jr., Letter From A Birmingham Jail.

It seems arrogant, doesn’t it, to tie my tiny little cause and thoughts to one of the greatest men of the 20^th Century? I thought about changing it for fear of looking ridiculous. In the end I stuck with it because I believe there is never a bad way to recall Martin Luther King’s name, message, and struggle to the world. It is done too seldom. Think how much more often you’ve heard Freddie Mercury’s name in the last year compared to Martin Luther King (no offense to fans of Mr. Mercury).

It is the tendency of people who appreciate people like Martin Luther King to refrain from mentioning him out of modesty or a reverence for the man himself. And while there is nothing wrong with modesty or reverence for our idols, it is a weakness that can be and is played upon by people who have no modesty of their own nor reverence for the likes of Dr. King. The life and example of Martin Luther King was a profound moment in history, and we should not be afraid to echo his thoughts and aspirations in order to keep his vision alive.

I fully realize that my small efforts are as a toddler’s timid first steps compared to a man who walked many arduous journeys. And yet the effort must be made. Were we able to ask Dr. King whether he would prefer to be emulated or revered, I have no doubt what his answer would be. He has left us ample clues as to what he believed ordinary people could do to make the world a better place. He would say “Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.” He would have said to those who sought to further his message “If you can't fly then run, if you can't run then walk, if you can't walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”

We do not have to believe ourselves great or worthy to follow the examples of Martin Luther King and all those who have stuck their necks out for the betterment of humanity. We have only to believe that the cause itself is great and worthy, and the cause will require every one of us to do our part. Great men by themselves will never bring about great change. Great men are borne aloft by the many who become aware of the greatness innate not only in themselves but in all humanity. Great men can only achieve great things when they are sustained by a movement, and a movement is only sustained by the efforts, vision, and sacrifice of a myriad unknown people who have caught a glimpse of a better future, or can no longer tolerate the injustice of the present.

I am increasingly coming to understand that the greatest of men cannot reshape the world when the clay is not yet ready to be molded. Had Martin Luther King been born a hundred years earlier, his message would have been drowned out by the cracking of the whip of the man who called himself his master. The times may not make the man, but the times make the man’s mission possible. And the smallest actions of the least of us help make the times what they are.

No, the world must be made ready if we wish to have leaders worthy of our support. Each of us must do what we can to clear the path for leaders wise enough, brave enough, and honest enough to lead us to the future we require.

Look about you. There are so many right now showing tremendous courage in standing up for truth and justice, for the rights of the oppressed and the poor. We have but to do our part in preparation and the required leaders will emerge from within a community demanding change. They will emerge from movements that foster the finest qualities and the most beautiful of visions. It is our mission to find what little greatness we have within us and bring it into the open for others to see. Seek out those doing generous deeds and they will inspire you, but you will inspire them as well. We are truly in this together. It is time we not merely entertain the idea but live it.

Seek courage and honest motivation in yourself, because though you may not be a leader like Martin Luther King, the challenge we have before us is the same one King saw before him. We still have what King called the “three major evils —the evil of racism, the evil of poverty, and the evil of war. We have slept for nearly 50 years since the death of Martin Luther King, and in that time the situation has grown even more critical. For 50 years we have awaited another leader to fix our problems. But he or she will never come until we have created a situation that is hospitable for such a one. The crisis point has arrived and we must each of us do what we can. And doing that, we must find ways to do more, in ways small or large.

And so I make my little protest while sitting in Facebook jail, refusing to be silenced. I’m fully aware that I am merely splashing about in the shallow end of the pool. But the whitecap of a wave that reaches skyward, that shines brightly above the water, is pushed upward by an unseen force from below. Let’s make some waves.

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Letters From Facebook Jail: Day 3

On Tuesday morning I was alerted by Facebook that I had posted something that violated community standards and as a result I would be banned from posting on Facebook for thirty days. The offending post was of Christmas tree decorations from Nazi Germany where the face of Adolph Hitler and a Swastika took the place of the more standard Christmas themes. I certainly wasn't making a statement in support of Nazi ideology or hate. Quite the opposite, I was pointing out how religion can be and often is coopted by politics.

They offered me the opportunity to appeal my ban, which I of course immediately did, because I had certainly not done anything hurtful or offensive.

I arrived home from work to discover that I was again able to post and like on Facebook, so I assumed that my appeal had caused someone at Facebook to realize I had done nothing hateful or harmful. Then, an hour later, I was told my appeal was denied and my Facebook ban was still in effect.

This morning, Thanksgiving Day, I scrolled through Facebook to see what people were saying, and without thinking about it, liked a comment. I was surprised to see that instead of a notice reminding me that I was banned, the like registered. Which encouraged me to try to post on my Facebook wall to see if it would be permitted. It was.

A short while later the ban was again in effect, but at least I had the opportunity to wish my Facebook friends a Happy Thanksgiving.

It is not my desire to bore you with the details about how Facebook institutes bans. And God knows I am not whining about the way I am being treated when there are others being placed in real prisons, facing real solitary confinement for sharing truthful information. I just want to point out to you the sort of one-sided relationship between powerful media sites and the average citizen. Imagine if George Orwell and Franz Kafka had a baby.

When I was told I had violated community standards, I was at least told what the offensive post was. Many people are not even told that and have had to guess what they did wrong. And while I was told I had an opportunity to appeal the ban, I was not given the chance to defend myself in any way. And when I received a reply back from my appeal, I was simply told that my offense against community standards had been upheld. No mention of who reviewed it, what the community standards are, or why the initial decision to ban me from one of modern civilization's greatest communication platforms.

Let me quickly point out the misuse of the term "community standards". It sounds almost democratic, doesn't it? As if the community of users got together, or at least sent their most trusted Facebook page administrators to a meeting where the rights and protection of the Facebook community was discussed and voted upon. Facebook does in fact have a set of community standards available: https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/ But while they make the argument that the group is chosen from "civil society organizations, activist groups, and thought leaders, in such areas as digital and civil rights, anti-discrimination, free speech, and human rights..." no specific organizations or people are mentioned.

If Facebook is to be an aid to a democratic society, and I believe it is necessary that it should be, it must behave in an open fashion. It can be argued that as a corporation, Facebook can act in any way it chooses, but my interest is not in the rights of corporations but in the rights of human beings and the well-being of society. It is therefore dangerous to a society that deems itself democratic to allow one of its primary conduits of conversation to be run in a secretive and self-serving fashion. The rights of corporations should hold little import in comparison with the rights of citizens of the United States and indeed the whole world. If the laws say differently, the laws need to be changed. 

I can imagine a much more democratic way of dealing with people who appeal a ban for violating non-specific standards. Appealing to a jury of one's piers is an idea that our founding fathers found essential. Assuredly it would involve a little more effort than appeal requests being handled by algorithms, but I'm certain it could be arranged without undue burden on the corporation that is Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg would have to peel a bunch of hundreds of his stack of cash, but I'm willing to bet it would still stand higher than the Eiffel Tower. He has, after all, had an amazing return on investment to date, and it is not unreasonable to ask him to invest a little more to ensure his product is a beneficial tool for society. I think it would do him good to view Facebook as a boon to humanity rather than a tool with which to extract wealth. There has to be a soul down inside him somewhere.

The alternative, of course, is what we have now and what will only become worse in the future: a dystopian surveillance tool that decides in secret what can and cannot be posted. A world where humans communicate through a platform that decides who will see that communication and what barriers they will have to overcome to access it. A platform for conversation, perhaps the most influential one we have, that leaves a user constantly self-censoring for fear that they might be transgressing unspecified laws and banned from communication with loved ones, coworkers, fans, potential customers, people with similar interests, etc. It is really hard to imagine a world more dystopian than one where you have no idea what words, images, or combinations of words and images can leave you isolated from your community. There is no more frustrating a feeling than working with all your passion and beliefs into crafting a statement or article, knowing that your post might be being strangled without any way of knowing if it is or not.

The typical response to the concerns I have expressed will surely be brought up. "You’re free not to use it if you don’t like it." "If you don’t like it, build your own communication platform." "Facebook is a private corporation that can run their business anyway they see fit." Etc. The problem with these sorts of responses that are always trotted out in defense of the big and the powerful is that such arguments never do anything to change things for the better and in fact permit things to get continually worse. People are constantly losing their power and their voice, while corporations are becoming less and less interested in serving the public good. How much longer do we want to continue to have the conversation take place within the framework giant corporations have constructed? If Facebook is permitted to continue running its platform as a money-making venture with no concern for their influence on our society, I fear there will be no end to it in the foreseeable future.

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