Facebook Community Standards

Facebook Community Standards

I’ve posted this on my Facebook account but considering what’s going on there I thought it safe to have it published here as well. Lately a lot of accounts owned by smart and talented people who write excellent posts (articles) and are followed by many users… are simply banned or suspended in the name of some mysterious “Community Standards” which are just some rubber-ideologies of too eager FB-employees. Others think that it is an AI-censor in the testing phase. Either way is not good.

Facebook Standards

There is something totally wrong with Facebook and its “Community Standards”. It is a bunch of crap ‘enforced’ by ignorant, unintelligent and uneducated FB-employees… often influenced by government agencies to silence critical voices.

It just happened in the past ten days or so that the accounts of two women – one Romanian, one Hungarian – were closed by some anonymous enforcers, citing the mysterious “Community Standards”.

Both persons are very critical of the ruling governments of the respective countries. Both use words, idioms and expressions that might contain *words* that are on the alert list of the FB-watching employees but always in a positive context. Let me give you an example: If someone says “Don’t let the neo-nazis take over the world!” – should this post be banned or greeted with applause? Yes, it has a word that describes a bunch of idiots that didn’t learn from history and adhere to a despicable ideology. But the real question is: WHAT IS THE MESSAGE of such a post? Is it something to be punished or is it something to be encouraged? Well, Zuckerberg’s team seems to be unable to make the difference… so they go by “finding” offensive words.

They also find “offensive” artworks of classic Renaissance and later periods – if they show the human body. The naked human body has been painted or made as statues since the old Greeks till today. For any thinking person, there is a clear difference between a porn star and Michelangelo’s David. And this distinction should be clear for any classic artworks that are placed, admired in museums and considered part of the heritage of the humankind.

Both banned “accounts”, i.e. the persons behind them, are very talented people, with the gift of writing thought-provoking posts, and are followed by many of us. It looks like voicing your protest against corrupt, immoral, authoritarian regimes results in FB closing your account. Because you are not allowed to name the corrupt, immoral, dictatorial regimes for what they are.

Governments ask Facebook to remove contant…