Facebook: censoring political speech

Feb 19, 2008

—

in political, Professional, social computing, social sciences, Tales from the Net

Facebook status: Jon is routing around censorship

Update on February 22: How to respond when Facebook censors your political speech is up on Tales from the Net and Wired’s How-to Wiki and links back to comments in this thread. Alas, the Facebook Barack Obama discussion board was deleted on February 20, so many of the links here go off to oblivion.

If you are doing political activism on Facebook and you’re getting warned as a spammer — or if your account has been disabled for engaging in political speech — please leave a comment here or on the Wired Wiki page. Thanks!

February 19: another account was deactivated with less than one hour notice. I’m getting flagged by Facebook’s automated filters for posting info about how to find polling locations. (Okay, I posted it twice, an hour apart. Still.) It’s not pretty. More soon.

February 17: the Obama discussion boards have been under such a heavy troll attack that they’ve been unlinked from the main Obama page.

February 13-15: troll wars in the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton discussion groups reveal more problems with Facebook’s automated filters when dealing with ‘malicious reporting’ — and accounts being deactivated and reinstated.

February 5: I’ve finally diagnosed what I was doing that was getting me flagged as a spammer on Facebook: including links in messages I was posting on discussion boards. Bad, bad, me. A great example of why people see Facebook as Orwellian, panoptic, and generally creepy. See the thread here for the full saga.

Originally posted on February 4 as “… or can we?”

I got up this morning psyched to follow up on the “Yes We Can” do grassroots campaigning for Obama on Facebook idea. I quickly sent PMs saying “thanks” to the people who had replied in the threads, most of whom I didn’t know. I replied in one of the thread to bump it, wrote on the wall of a group that seemed a little slow, and then went to send another reply and …

Got this

Your are spamming. Your account could be disabled.

Bummer drag. It’s the same thing that happened to Canadian labor activist Derek Blackadder; he didn’t stop, and his account got suspended. So looks like I’ll be cooling it on Facebook for a while. Hopefully others will keep things going!

censorship civil liberties computer science as a social science election election08 facebook freedom of speech grassroots activism obama social networks

Comments

61 responses to “Facebook: censoring political speech”

jon

February 4, 2008

Since I’m effectively shut down on Facebook, I’d appreciate help (if you think it’s a good idea) in bumping the thread in the Obama Facebook discussion board.

A mention and link on the Wall from time to time, both there and in the One Million Strong for Barack group, would also be very helpful.

Don’t do either of these too often, though: you wouldn’t want to be shut down as a spammer.

Reply
BayouBlue

February 4, 2008

I assume that this message was system generated based on statistics, not based on a complaint from another members.

It does show some of the potential issues of using corporate systems for political activism causes.

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jon

February 4, 2008

No way to know for sure. My first reaction was also to assume it’s the automated systems. My behavior does superficially look like spamming: I had the same link in a bunch of different posts. If their algorithms aren’t smart enough to recognize “hey, the people he’s PM’ing are all either friends or Obama groups” they might draw the wrong conclusion — the same thing happened to me earlier in the week when I started trying to build support for a potential letter to the editor to the Economist, and I’m 99% sure nobody reported me in that case.

Also, I was pretty careful about who I contacted. Some of them are good friends, and while they’re not all supporting Obama I figured they’d at least be interested in watching. And all the other people were folks who were posting in the Obama groups; I’ve exchanged email with at least a half dozen.

Of course something I said may have come out wrong or somebody might have been offended for other reasons. [If so, and you happen to see this thread, my apologies.] Also there’s some trolling and sniping going on in the discussion groups; maybe a Clinton supporter thought it was such a great idea they wanted to shut me down!

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jon

February 4, 2008

My Facebooking privileges have been restored. Yay!

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jon

February 5, 2008

But wait! I’m once again being flagged!

This time I was pretty meticulous in recording what I did: starting one discussion thread, posting maybe a dozen times there and elsewhere, and reply to a few PMs somebody had sent me. And fortunately, almost all the discussion was in a publically-visible forum. These were my last two posts (or maybe two of the last three). My current guess is that it’s the links that are triggering the spam filters.

It’s time for me to head to sleep anyhow, so as long as it’s just another 8-hourish “time out” it’s not a disaster. Still, this is pretty distressing.

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jon

February 5, 2008

Restored this a.m.; made one post in the Obama discussion group, with a link in it … immediately flagged again.

I then followed up with another post without links, and it posted successfully.

Very interesting. Facebook’s discussion boards essentially restrict “linking” to things within their walled garden (your profile, other things on the same page). Attempts to get around it are treated as transgressions with a presumption of guilt: note the language in the warning, “you are using this feature to spam other users”; the FAQ makes clear there’s no recourse, so I have no rights.

If anybody from Facebook happens to read this thread: this is why people think you’re Orwellian, panoptic, and generally creepy.

After things calm down a little, I’ll follow up on this… for now, I’ll find ways to work around it. John Gilmore would be proud.

Reply
Eric ‘Obamafan’ Reyes

February 5, 2008

I had the same nonsense happen to me.

I actually contacted facebook and complained about the mischaracterization of my debates as spam, they told me their software can’t tell the difference.

Sweet huh?

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jon

February 5, 2008

Yeah really. “Our software’s can’t tell the difference, so you lose.”

I certainly understand where Facebook is coming from — there are increasing amounts of spam in a lot of discussion groups, and they don’t want to be overrun. Still, it really does have a chilling effect on speech.

Thanks for posting! Glad to hear it’s not just me — and if anybody knows other people this is happening to, please direct them to this thread.

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jon

February 5, 2008

A couple of other people replied in the Facebook thread, and somebody else PM’ed me, all saying this had happened to them as well.

Interesting.

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jon

February 5, 2008

Facebook hasn’t been able to keep up with the load on the Barack Obama discussion board; I’m getting frequent, and links sending me to the wrong location.

It’s really too bad they’re using all those CPU resources to inspect and censor political speech.

Reply
Tamera

February 13, 2008

Jon, as i stated in the message that i sent you, this happened to me simply because other users who were trolling decided to be immature and petty.

i honestly don’t think it had anything to do with the 4 or so posts i made with a link. it was because a bunch of us were trying to keep the discussion board clear of all the hateful, racial, derogatory, and slanderous comments. one user stated that she reported me “just to see what happens”.

so much for free speech in America.

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jon

February 13, 2008

Tamera, ow. (and thanks for posting!) I’ve posted a lot more than four links recently, in fact I was wondering if the limit had gone up, so yeah, now that I think about it more you are right: it most likely was malicious reporting.

If anybody from Facebook had taken the time to look at the threads it would be blindingly clear who was being hateful and racist and who was trying to keep positive discussions going on the board, so once again it must be them relying on their automated filters.

> so much for free speech in America.

Facebook is very clearly not a free speech zone. This is political speech, too, which typically deserves the highest level of protection. Of course Facebook’s just trying to protect its users from spam but the end result is a definite chilling effect.

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jon

February 13, 2008

Here’s another thread on this from the (registration required to view) One Million Strong for Barack group. The thread was kicked off by Monte, whose previous account had been suspended by Facebook for doing activism work.

At one point the thread included a letter he wrote to Facebook explaining the situation. Now his account has been deleted and his posts erased from history. Because of a quirk in how Facebook sorts threads, this continues to show up on the discussion board even though it’s marked as deleted. Interesting that his posts were deleted automatically when as Maria Aspin just pointed out in the New York Times, usually Facebook won’t clean up users information until they threaten legal action.

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jon

February 14, 2008

Eric Reyes PM’ed me (quoted with permission):

I actually got disabled last friday and was finally reactivated Sunday night.

I had an ongoing warning for everything I did for the next day or so, but nothing since.

If there were any meaningful manual checking here, they’d have noticed that he had already contacted them once about the bug in their filters. Instead his account was disabled for two days without any chance to appeal. Free speech? Due process? Apparently not.

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Jeff

February 14, 2008

This same issue popped up on Huffington Post today.

Union Organizer Finds Facebook A Problematic Advocacy Platform

Reply
jon

February 14, 2008

Good catch, Jeff, thanks for posting. The article, by Alison Fine, is a followup on Derek Blackadder’s experience, and makes some excellent points. The ending:

As anyone who has wrangled with the site knows, customer service at Facebook is a black hole of algorithms. Users are cut off when some calculation is tripped and the user is flagged for abuse and charged by automatic emails. Even more unsettling than Derek’s rights being taken away in the first place was the way they were reinstituted. What made the “final decision” unfinal? Was it because there was a protest? How large does a protest have to be to reverse the irreversible? Who makes these decisions, how and why? Companies can operate capriciously and continue reaping profits. Communities can’t, or if they do, they won’t continue to be growing, trusting, vibrant, robust meeting places.

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jon

February 15, 2008

Another example described here.

The response I got from FB was that this was because of repeating posts with the same message, but the only time I’ve done that is with the occasional “bump” to get a thread back to the top. I’m not sure how many times I’ve done that, but I’d guess maybe a dozen times over the last week. Can something as benign as that trigger the spam warning?

I’m not getting the message anymore, so I guess it’s cool again. But it’s pretty damn bizarre if that’s all it takes.

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jon

February 16, 2008

I saw something by Joanna PeÃ±a-Bickley on the wall on the Hillary Clinton page, and followed the link to her blog post describing what had happened to her:

With in an hour of my posting a positive Hillary video my account was de-activated. What is worthy of note is that Facebook only sounded the deactivation alarm with 2 emails, sent three minutes apart, five minutes before they de-activated my account.

As with Tamera, this seems to have been caused by people maliciously “reporting” Joanna, and Facebook’s automated filters de-activating her account before anybody from Facebook looked at it. Once they did …

Try quickly trying to find a person to sound an alert to â€“ not easy. I went through the normal channels and many of my Facebook Friends wrote FB on my behalf. That combined with contacting a mutual friend in their advertising department helped restored my online credentials. This morning the tech team re-instated my account. I thank Facebook for their swift action. I ponder if I had not been a practitioner in the space would I have been able to get my social networking street cred. back so quickly?

Good question. And it’s not just her cred that got de-activated; a lot of people depend on Facebook for all kinds of communication. The message from Facebook is very clear here: guilty until you can find a friend on the inside to help.

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jon

February 16, 2008

Incidentally if it seems like I am being overly harsh on Facebook’s automated filters: I know that this is a difficult problem in general, but their performance is really atrocious. The troll attack on the Barack Obama discussion group was so bad that the entire group has been removed from the main page (you can still get there by following the backdoor link above), and there were just a few accounts claiming to be Hillary Clinton supporters behind it. [I should hastily add that these are not at all typical of most Clinton supporters — in fact, one theory is that they’re Republican dirty tricks operators trying to divide Democrats. But I digress.]

Here‘s an example of the kind of behavior Facebook isn’t flagging: repeated posts in an abusive thread, designed to keep it at the top of the discussion list. Picture stuff like this, often worse, posted repeatedly in multiple threads. Quite a few people told me they reported this thread; I similarly reported a couple of others for repeated racist and sexist remarks; the accounts kept posting away, so Facebook appears to have been ignoring the reports. And since the wording was different each time, their spam filters didn’t mind it either.

As the EFF says, architecture is policy: Facebook’s filters are tolerating this disruptive behavior, even when reported. By contrast they’re shutting down the kinds of legitimate and valuable political speech that Tamera, Joanna, Eric, and others are engaging in.

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jon

February 16, 2008

Bizarre: Facebook is logging me out whenever I try to reply to a message! Have I been on double secret probation all along? Or is it just a bug?

update: on further experimentation, the logouts seem to be intermittent when doing anything related to my inbox. sigh.

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jon

February 17, 2008

The Obama discussion board has been under such a heavy troll attack that it’s been unlinked from the main Obama page.

It really has cut down the momentum of the discussion board for now; but there was enough racist, sexist and abusive spewing that it probably was the right thing to unlink it until they can get the troll problem under control.

One of the challenges on the Obama board has been the near-total absence of interventions by an administrator or moderator. The funny thing is, it seems like the admin is Chris Hughes, one of the founders of Facebook — you’d think he’d know better! On further reflection, though, discussion groups are relatively new to Facebook, and this is the first presidential campaign where it’s been a battleground, so they don’t have a lot of experience to bring to bear … seems like a good time for the Facebook folks to read Clay Shirky’s Flaming and the design of social software — and maybe also A group is its own worst enemy.

So, to recap: Facebook’s automated filters are shutting down legitimate political speech. And these same filters don’t preventing bad actors (trolls etc.) from shutting down others’ political speech — in fact, with people getting warned/suspended because trolls “reported” them, Facebook’s filters reinforce censorship-through-thuggishness.

As danah boyd would say, le sigh.

One thing that would help a lot in the short term: appoint a bunch of co-moderators. There are at least a couple dozen regular posters who would do a great job here and I’m sure would be delighted to help. By selectively deleting troll posts, and working with Facebook to report and/or defend users, they could get the board back on track. Hopefully something like that will happen …

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AJ

February 18, 2008

I am very sure that these so-called Billary Trolls began reporting me once i began to post clean but aggressive & thourol responses with news & resource reference links to back up my arguments…

ie. Exposing Hillaryâ€™s Illegalities in LA Court to begin on February 21

which is the best facebook email to contact and what exactly should I be saying to FB to get reinstated? Will my 500 contacts still be there if reinstated?

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jon

February 18, 2008

AJ, I’m not sure about the best Facebook address to contact — the best thing to do is to ask in Joanna’s thread.

If anybody knows, please post the answer both here and there!

jon

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AJ

February 18, 2008

I just read her blog and i know realize that its happening on both sides…well hopefully we can all work together to help solve the problem and keep the fb online debate clean and get rid of the trolls on both sides…

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jon

February 19, 2008

Since the discussion groups have been unlinked from the main page, the only way to reach the 1000ish new people/hour who join the Obama page as supporters is via its Wall. Here’s what I posted this morning, typos and all:

WISCONSIN voters: find your polling location here http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/wilookup

*remember*, if you’re not registered, or a college student in Wisconsin, you can register today and still vote!

HAWAII voters: caucus locations at: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hilookup

Everyody:

PHONEBANK info at http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/phonebankmap

DISCUSSION BOADR at http://www.facebook.com/board.php?uid=6815841748

There’s so much activity there that things don’t stay up long; so a while later I checked and saw that there wasn’t any equivalent information on the front page of the board. So at 7:39 a.m. I reposted …

And immediately got a spam warning.

Sigh. So much for “get out the vote” — or trying to stimulate political discussion.

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jon

February 19, 2008

Here’s what I posted as a note on Facebook …

Which means spam warnings whenever I post on a wall or board, send a message — or even read a Wall or a message, because, y’know, that’s a clear sign of intent.

So don’t expect to hear much (if at all) from me today. I’ll be reading any messages I get here, but probably not responding. (And please forgive the unconventional communications mechanism of this note :-))

More updates on Liminal States, as posted items, and if I’m feeling particularly creative as clever status messages.

jon

Is this what John Gilmore was talking about?

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AJ

February 19, 2008

Facebook Support to me

Hi AJ,

Your account was disabled because you took repeated actions that could be construed as spam. For instance, it is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use to repeatedly send the same message or to make the same post. Facebook prides itself in protecting users from spam, and we take this standard very seriously.

However, after reviewing your situation, we have reactivated your account, and you should now be able to log in. Please refrain from sending the same message or repeating the same post, as further violations of our Terms will result in your account being permanently disabled.

Please also be aware that when a warning message appears on your home page, it will generally be displayed for 24 hours. It can be displayed for longer, however, if you continue to perform these actions. We appreciate your cooperation going forward.

Thanks for your understanding,

(name deleted)
User Operations
Facebook

—–Original Message to Facebook—–
From: AJ
To: disabled@facebook.com
Subject: Re: Warning: Your Facebook Account

my main account JUST got deleted…what do i do to get back my over 500
contacts (kindergarten to corporate) as a result of blogging within Facebook
policy & regulations for obama.. I feel strongly that I was wrongly
reported by a possible Hillary related supporter.

This is the first time ive taken so much interest & participation in any
discussion on Facebook so I am very upset that these Hillary trolls were
able to outwit Facebook and FB policy abiding members…your help is much
appreciated.

thanks

Reply
Liminal states » Blog Archive » Facebook Barack Obama discussion board has been deleted!

February 20, 2008

[…] Liminal states Jon’s blog, title subject to change « Facebook: censoring political speech […]

Reply
Tales from the Net » How to respond when Facebook censors your political speech: Part 1

February 20, 2008

[…] labor activists Derek and MiniMSFT, Hillary Clinton supporter Joanna, and Barack Obama supporters AJ and “deleted” (the now-anonymous deleted poster from one of the above threads) — […]

Reply
Liminal states » Blog Archive » Grr: “Our terms of service has changed”

February 22, 2008

[…] page, or any Yuku page via HTML/CSS or any other means.” #10, Modification and Termination (a subject very much on my mind these days) features Specific reasons that Yuku may terminate your access or use, include, but are […]

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jon

February 22, 2008

Oops, I posted about this one on Facebook, but forgot to post here — it happened on February 19. Alas, the links go nowhere; I’ve left them for reference purposes.

i didn’t post for most of the day, and the warning went away …

tonight, i posted in a few different threads on the Barack Obama discussion boards — I had links in a couple of them, but not any duplicates. I was careful not to cut-and-paste. And then I started getting the warning again.

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=6815841748&topic=5592
http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=6815841748&topic=5549&start=101

In retrospect, I had also sent one of the links to somebody in a private message. So this seems like a pretty clear case of duplicate links, without duplicate text.

jon

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Michael

February 22, 2008

This is the second time I’ve received the warning when proceeding to post to a candidate’s fan page wall. The last time, I was in the midst of fending off trolls and received the warning after posting ten times.

This afternoon, I simply clicked “See All” on the Obama wall because without the discussion boards, it’s the only means one has of dialoguing (intelligently or not). The warning came up each time it occurred.

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Michael

February 22, 2008

It’s stated I was using the feature to spam other users, when I have NEVER sent identical posts… or certainly not without hours intervening.

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jon

February 24, 2008

Michael, I also find it really insulting that the warning message tells me in no uncertain terms “you ARE using this feature to spam other users”. No, I’m not. Facebook’s filters may think I am, but they’re wrong. Stop accusing me!

And the warnings for clicking on “See All” on the Wall make as little sense as the warnings for clicking on a message in your Inbox.

Sigh.

Reply
jon

February 24, 2008

There’s been some coverage of this story, in MyDD and the San Jose Mercury News.

Also, here’s another thread in the One Million Strong for Barack group on Facebook discussing this.

Reply
Microspotting | Mini-Microsoft opens up about Facebook, being unmasked, and taking advantage of groupies

February 27, 2008

[…] Microsoftie Jon Pincus has a great snippet about Facebook: “â€¦ people see Facebook as Orwellian, panoptic, and generally creepy.“He also has a write-up of tactics to defend yourself against being kicked off of Facebook. […]

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jon

June 4, 2008

Yet another thread on Facebook …

We talked about this in the CFP social network workshop. Of the dozen Facebook users there, two had had their accounts deleted with no notice — freeculture.org and the ACLU!

We’re thinking about an activism campaign …

Reply
Liminal states » Petitions are soooooo 20th century: Obama supporters AGAINST Larry Summers (DRAFT)

November 8, 2008

[…] network sites — and for reasons I’m very sympathetic with, such as Facebook’s creepy and Orwellian vibe and horrible privacy practices.Â For that matter, a lot of people just plain prefer email.Â So […]

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Bill Baker

December 3, 2008

Not just this, but they routinely ban people critical of religion and their groups if they create them.
Just like youtube.
I just got deldted from facebook for unknwon reasons, but I suspect it has something to do with my criticism of religions and their followers

Certain groups with special delusions get treated with special privelage while the rest of us are beeing silenced on facebook, youtube, myspace, all voer the net and in general in many areas of public discourse.

Our so-called democracy is a sham!
So much for freedom of speech/expression

In Reason:
Bill Baker

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Mark

December 3, 2008

I sent a msg to about 200 members of a group I run about Buy Nothing Day.
Maybe fb want you to Buy Everything.
They warned me for 24 hrs.
Sour grapes?

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Eddy J

December 9, 2008

Hi Bill, and evryone else. I know exactly what you mean when you talk of criticising religion. I’ve been banned from Yahoo answers because i just asked the question, ”

Why the word ‘Jew’ recieves special attention on Google?”

Basically when you type this word into the search engine, you get an over the top apologetic article from the google staff about how disturbed they are to find negative websites related to this word. I found it ironic, that other words like ‘Negro’, ‘raghead’ etc didn’t get the same response.

Anyway, this must have rustled a few feathers at the yahoo team and next thing I know, my account is PERMANENTLY disabled! lol.

Too bad for them, they have one less viewer fo rthier sponsors, cos I stopped using it.

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miriam white

December 15, 2008

The holidaze make me crazy. I was posting Utube videos and songs like I always do and always have.

I made some statements against the WHITE MEDIA lynching Michael Jackson and other celebrities and exploiting their genius. I said journalists should be accountable and adhere 2 the same ethics as doctors and lawyers. I cast a stone at Martin Bashir.

But I always play videos. They are my posts to my friends ONLY. I dont post in groups. Only on my FACEBOOK PAGE. Its a private page.

Ive emailed people. Im a poet and an artist. Im upset with the holidays and the fact that the War is going on in Iraq. My brother has gone twice. My son’s people are dying before the age of 25 or going to prison.

Why was I silenced?

As Audre Lourde said

SILENCE = DEATH

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miriam white

December 15, 2008

Like I said, I was just posting videos. Only to MY FRIENDS.

Not very nice…..

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miriam white

December 18, 2008

Im back on

I got this message in response to the most polite of my multiple emails.

Hi Miriam,

Facebook has limits in place to prevent behavior that other users may find annoying or abusive. These limits restrict the rate at which you can use certain features on the site, including the message feature. Unfortunately, we cannot provide you with the specific rates that have been deemed abusive.

Your account was disabled because you exceeded Facebook’s limits on multiple occasions, despite having been warned to slow down. However, after reviewing your situation, we have reconfirmed your account and you should now be able to access it again.

Please be aware that if your account is disabled again, we will not be able to reactivate it. While using the message feature, keep in mind that it’s possible to run into a block based on how many messages you send and how fast you send them. It’s also possible to be blocked when either starting a new message thread or replying to a message. Lastly, deleting old messages will not allow you to send more messages. When you are allowed to resume using the message feature, please proceed with caution to avoid hitting the limit again. Let me know if you have further questions.

Thank you for your cooperation,

Will
User Operations
Facebook

—–Original Message to Facebook—–

To: info@facebook.com (info@facebook.com), disabled@facebook.com (disabled@facebook.com), appeals@facebook.com (appeals@facebook.com), warning@facebook.com (warning@facebook.com)
Subject: Please enable my facebook, it was disabled by mistakeâ€

Ive sent a bunch of messages. Please enable my facebook page when you
can. I understand you are busy. But I did not spam anyone. I dont
send out messages. I only post on my one wall. Please. I did not
back up my art. Nor did I back up my contacts. Like an idiot, I never
thought this would happen. I take full accountability. I was a little
buzzed on wine and full of spirit. I probably posted too many. But I
didnt realize. Please. I am cut off. I am alone and depressed. I
was hospitalized last week. I am a poet and writer. Ive worked for
High Times and Marc Emery of Cannabis Culture. Im very sick and its
the hoidays. Im so depressed and without my friends Im getting really
bad. Please help me.

Its been almost 24 hours. I just
started smoking again. I need to talk to my friends. Its the
holidays. Sorry to wine. I understand. Im a computer geek myself and
Star Wars nerd.

Thank you. May the Force Be With You.

miriam l white

I was NEVER warned. I never send out messages. I just post videos, photos and links to my own page. I use it like a blog. I am an artist. I do the same thing I always do. Why this particular night? Who knows. God tells me I needed a break. I just feel bad for the Obama folks during the election. As fate and “the Force” has it, we Won. Jesus Walks.

Reply
Sergio

January 30, 2009

Facebook even banned some George Orwell t-shirts: http://prozacforangels.ning.com/profiles/blogs/1984-25-years-after-the

Reply
miriam white

February 7, 2009

Your use of our Share feature indicates that you may be in violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in your account being disabled. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page.

This came up last night after posting American Indian Genocide, Mumia Abu-Jamal and links about him.

Last time they just cut me off without warning. This time that SILENCER and CENSORSHIP just looms above my HOME page.

*sigh*

WE SHALL OVERCOME!!!

WAR IS OVER. if you want it

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miriam white

February 7, 2009

I have been CENSORED. I am gone. Poof. OFF FACEBOOK. For posting Mumia Abu-Jamal. First for sticking up for Michael Jackson and now this

UN FUCKING BELIEVABLE. Whatever. IM SHOCKED!!!!!!!

WOW.

ORWELLIAN BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reply
miriam white

February 8, 2009

I just sent Facebook a very nice message. You can catch more flies with Honey. Lets see if they let me back on. I DID NOTHING WRONG!!!!!!!!

Facebook staff and Operations User Staff,

My Facebook Account was disabled yesterday. I saved a snapshot of my screen before it was disabled. I received a warning message saying that my share feature was being misused. My last “Shared Video” before being disabled was at 3:07 am. At 2:58 I posted a link. I shared a Facebook group at 2:52. I posted a couple links on Agoraphobia (Utube vid 1:23, Link to Agoraphobia 1:21). Before that I posted 2 Utube videos in tribute to Saul Tigh and Felix Gaeta for my favorite show Battlestar Gallactica. These were shared after I watched my favorite show at 12:30 am.

I dont see how I was in violation of Facebook share policies. There MUST be some mistake. Unless you have spelled out terms of how much one can share on their own page per hour. I havent read them. Myspace stops you as you are posting too much. But I assume there was a mistake on Facebook’s behalf.

I appreciate Facebook, I love your features for professional networking. Please re-instate my account ASAP. Thank you for your time and attention, and wonderful service.

Warm Regards,
miriam

Reply
miriam white

February 8, 2009

I was talking to a policy friend who told me she heard the CIA may be involved with Facebook censorhip. Hrmmm. J Edgar Hoover??? Still holding on to the wayz of the Evil Empire? Mob Cigar mouths full I think I will post one of my poems here…

Woodsmen

Douglas fir hide, woodsmen
Creating cadavers

Emotional like flight 93 United
Into the fire she went

Hate and condemnation
From righteous foes

Young boys hang
Innocence gives guilt

Sacrifice and repent
Woods gives life men take

Old bark clings to wet moss
Flopping fish, dying to return

For fatality and decrepit scales
Mob cigar mouths full

Burn the witch,
Hang the bitch, lynch the Nigger

Carpetbagger hate, backwoods backwards
History remember and burn

Chant the Lords prayer to escape
Disney memories

Acid trip fast
Die in pieces

Flesh goneâ€¦â€¦
Woodsmen feed families

White sheets and glory holes

Censorship is WRONG. CIA spying on ACTIVISTS IS WRONG. WHAT THE FUCK. Facebook is a great tool for professional networking. I love it. But this is not cool. Not cool at all. Fuck You Very Much. Freedom of Speech. Civil Liberties. The Truth is Out There. Like Fox Mulder Said. So Say We All. xxxooo

Reply
miriam white

February 8, 2009

Welcome to the World of the Patriot Act. Thanks BUSH. This is why I stopped being an activist. Hid in fear. Like other activists. Labeled crazy. Medicated. Hrmmmm.

The Burning Bush of War

Those Haji towel heads tried to kill your dad
Close to four thousand soldiers dead, protesters litter streets

This Saturday soon after president re-declared Iraq the enemy
Commits more troops, his truth and weapons of mass destruction

Paris and Anna Nicole headline news, Nysnc’s Timeberlake and
Joey Fatone. Boy bands like soldiers long gone

Bin Laden free press on Al Jazeeraza TV
More blood, more fire, we hear with each tear.

Soldiers return year after fear. Rotations rob and
Villains appear like GI Joe dolls

Creating and recreating Timothy McVeigh, Dylan and Cho
Electrocute, shoot, Use. Moses saw the re-election

Natural selection. God Loves War.

——-

Im just a poet, proud Momma of a Black Son, UC Berkeley grad, sister of a Major, 2x Iraq vet, med marijuana patient about to get heart surgery. CIA leave me alone and let me be. Im a historian, YES. I believe like Dr. Angela Davis, that one should spread knowledge. My Education from Berkeley, I pass down the knowledge. Spread seeds. Freedom of Speech. Art. Positive Revolution.

Censorship is Ugly. Please stop abusing activists on Facebook.

Reply
Vadergrrrl aka miriam white

February 13, 2009

Im still not back on Facebook. I did nothing wrong. This saddens me. My son is Black. Mumia Abu-Jamal deserves a VOICE. Posting about his case should not be grounds for losing your Facebook account.

Im a medical marijuana patient. I used to work at NORML, write for High Times and I hosted my own show on Marc Emery’s PotTV called the Rebel Alliance. I smoked pot at the Yippie, 4th of July Smoke In, on the White House lawn, in the Mic, calling out Bill Clinton. ALL OF MY ACTIVISM STOPPED WITH THE PATRIOT ACT.

Im about to have heart surgery. Facebook was my community. Ive found some people on other ways. But Im not well. Im not about to build another facebook page. I made my facebook page into a portfolio.

My computer is acting all strange. Even Myspace is sometimes acting weird.

I recieved 2 emails from 2 Facebook accounts.

Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 12:51:31 -0800
> To: miriamlwhite@hotmail.com
> From: appeals+ni3xn0e@facebook.com
> Subject: Re: Please enable my Facebook Account
>
> The Facebook Team has received your inquiry. We should get back to you soon. In the meantime, we encourage you to review our Terms of Use (http://www.facebook.com/terms.php) for more information.
>
> Thanks for contacting Facebook,
>
> The Facebook Team

Thank you for your time and attention. Facebook is a great service.

Warm Regards,
miriam

miriam l white
miriamlwhite@cal.berkeley.edu

> Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 12:51:31 -0800
> To: miriamlwhite@hotmail.com
> From: appeals+di2xd02@facebook.com
> Subject: Re: Please enable my Facebook Account

I still havent heard anything. I may send another email. But….??? This is not cool. I guess its the CIA just reading every bit of small detail that Ive done on Facebook. I dont know what else to think. Perverts. They are probably jacking off to my poetry. They will find nothing. Im all about peace and LOVE MAKING. Whatever. WE SHALL OVERCOME!!!!

Reply
Kyle Tavares

February 16, 2009

Politically charged hardcore punk band United Nations’ facebook and myspace page were deleted recently.
Apparently there is something illegal about using the words “United” and “Nations” together as a band name,
according to facebook and myspace.

Reply
Vadergrrrl aka miriam white

February 20, 2009

My account is still disabled. No replies to my emails. No explanations. We started a group on facebook. What else can you do?

Jodie Emery, Marc Emery’s wife, also had her account disabled. No due cause.

Patriot Act BULLSHIT. Snooping. Wasting Tax Dollars. Harassment of artists and activists. VIOLATING OUR PRIVACY.

Reply
Raton

April 25, 2009

Preaching to the choir here, but why can’t anyone see that the government is NOT to be trusted too much. They are corrupt. They will be corrupt. Limit it. Restore FREEDOM. We are sliding in a slow evolution toward the same cold war communist threat we feared so much. No liberties. All-powerful government spying on its own.

CIA killed Bob Marley via lung cancer.
CIA killed Peter Tosh in a supposed robbery in Jamaica (after US refused him entry to US for a concert tour).

Reply
Microsoft JobsBlog

November 5, 2009

Mini-Microsoft opens up about Facebook, being unmasked, and taking advantage of groupies…

Perhaps you’re familiar with Mini-Microsoft , the anonymous Deep Throat Microsoft blogger who’s been lovingly griping online about the company online since 2004. Mini is somewhat infamous (having been interviewed by Business Week and The Seattle Time…

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Mini-Microsoft opens up about Facebook, being unmasked, and taking advantage of groupies : Microsoft JobsBlog

November 16, 2009

[…] Microsoftie Jon Pincus has a great snippet about Facebook: "â€¦ people see Facebook as Orwellian, panoptic, and generally creepy." He also has a write-up of tactics to defend yourself against being kicked off of Facebook. The […]

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Muzzled by the United Nations | domain names |

November 19, 2009

[…] political activists in a range of countries from India to the United States have had their Facebook accounts suspended because Facebook’s automated systems thought they […]

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Mini-Microsoft opens up about Facebook, being unmasked, and taking advantage of groupies : Microsoft JobsBlog

December 29, 2009

[…] Microsoftie Jon Pincus has a great snippet about Facebook: "… people see Facebook as Orwellian, panoptic, and generally creepy." He also has a write-up of tactics to defend yourself against being kicked off of Facebook. […]

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Tales from the Net » “Banned from HuffPo”

September 7, 2010

[…] Of course it’s not just HuffPo — I’ve had my own run-ins with automated filters and been banned from sites after critical comments — but that doesn’t make it any less […]

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urillaGroli

November 24, 2010

President Obama cares about all of the residents in his country without regard to race and religion. Check out: tunezja wakacje

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Activism beyond Facebook: what are the alternatives? – A Change Is Coming

May 6, 2019

[…] Facebook has always been a challenging place to do activism and over the years has gotten steadily worse and worse.Â So a lot of activism groups I talk to are looking for alternatives. […]

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Facebook: censoring political speech

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