Facebook banned my anti-violence post from 2015, and they probably did the right thing.
More than 6 years old, I wrote a piece about the American gun problem that I shared to Facebook. It was a time before marriage equality, the COVID 19 pandemic, even before a Donald Trump presidency and Fake news.
And then tonight November 14, 2021, a post I always thought was risky to share because of how graphic and serious the inciting incidence was behind the post, finally caught up to me. I received a notification that the post breached Facebook rules. And fair enough. I get it. I posted screen shots of a murder. Facebook informed me they removed the post and I was at risk of my account being suspended.
And something really became clear to me. Facebook is no longer a place to have these type of conversations. Facebook is now a place for advertisers to connect with consumers. Fake news solidified that. Controversial opinion was not in the best interest of advertisers, and in the post-truth world, the images alone perpetrated the hate that belonged to them. Advertisers don’t want that. And I should know. I made a decision during the early pandemic miss-information period to never spend another cent on Facebook ads again. And I haven’t.
I felt I wanted to write an apology to whoever moderated my post – a bot or human. I did the wrong thing – the images were disgusting and I should never have shared them. By sharing them, I was promoting, not shaming a horrible act.
It’s frustrating because I, like any person, does not want to feel like their voice is being silenced. Many believe Facebook has acted to minimise minority voices. Other believe Facebook is enforcing censorship. I respect that my post was likely banned for the images rather than the text that came with it
But I am not bitter – I’d rather not loose my account so I guess that’s why I am here on Medium. This seems like a safe place to exercise opinion. Platforms matter. I accept Facebook doesn’t want certain content on their platform. I appreciate Medium too has a standard users are expected to meet.
So I present my original Facebook post unedited from 2015 with the images included, but with black marks to provide some censoring, be it minimal, so a reader can appreciate context to my 6 year old opinion
27 August 2015 – Facebook
If you look at what I usually post on Facebook, you’ll find over the last year or so, I have shared my opinion less and less on politics, news and world events. In many ways, I felt like there was little worth in adding my voice that inevitably will get lost in the scores of opinions that float around on Facebook or anywhere online for that matter. I’m not happy with the state of leadership and politics in our country and haven’t been for some time, but simply put, some people are quite happy with the Abbott Government. I’m not happy with the fact the marriage equality debate continues, but there are plenty of people who see a serious problem with changing the traditional definition of marriage. And naivety on why refugee boats are being turned away from our country and treated like criminals is only offset by many people who believe it’s the right thing to do to protect our country. From my perspective each of these things matter, but I see so little point in frequently grandstanding on social media places, like here, with the hope that anything I say will invoke change for the good. Because I know it won’t, I’m only one guy with little influence on the big issues in our world.
But then comes along these images. And I feel I just cant sit back, watch the coverage, read the articles and not comment, and not say something. I think these images are perhaps some of the most frightening images imaginable. These are images of a man committing a murder. Then consider that these images are screen grabs from a video. He filmed the murder he just committed and posted it to Facebook. Then realise that this was happening on television. A live news broadcast. A clip now going viral.
The question I want to ask is when is the tipping point for the US?
Jim Jefferies frames the American attitudes to guns perfectly in his infamous gun control bit: “In Australia we had guns, right up until 1996. In 1996 Australia had the biggest massacre on earth. Still hasn’t been beaten. Now after that they banned guns. Now in the 10 years before Port Arthur, there were 10 massacres. Since the gun ban in 1996, there hasn’t been a single massacre since. I don’t know how or why this happened. Maybe it was a coincidence. I understand that Australia and America are too vastly different cultures with two vastly different people. In Australia we had the biggest massacre on earth and the Australian government went, ‘That’s it, no more guns!’ And we all went, ‘Yeah, right, then, that seems fair enough.’ Now in America, you have the Sandy Hook Massacre where tiny little children died and your government went, ‘Maybe, we’ll get rid of big guns.’ And 50 percent of you said, ‘Fuck you, don’t take my guns!’
I realise there is little one Aussie guy from Canberra, Australia can really say, that will make a large portion of Americans accept it’s time to throw away the guns. There’s probably just as little many Australians could do as whole to encourage Americans to make such a constitutional change. But surely after the last year of intensified media coverage of gun violence in America, something, somewhere is gotta give.
Of all the people who were likely killed in gun violence today all over the world, these two journalist must represent something more than a passing breaking news story. The circumstance of this horrific incident needs to resonant. And common sense and decency for the respect of human life needs to prevail. The US needs strong leadership. They have already seen such incredible steps taken under Barack Obama’s presidency. But the gun issue belongs to the next American leader.
Of all the evils in the world, I believe there are many many more decent, hardworking, respectful, honest and genuine people, who follow at heart, the. simply mantra of love yourself, and love the person closest. This has to be message. Its non-racial, non-religious, non denominational, non political, non-gender and completely universal way of living life and majority of the world follow it. And we can only hope that this love, is what will give way for change on gun laws in the US and around the world.
End of 2015 Facebook post.
The message seems lost. By re-sharing this now banned post will mean this opinion will live on.
If I had only known 6 years later the conversation hadn’t change much, just different framing, and it was only made worse by 4 awful years of US leadership.
And even more so, 6 continued years of dreadful Australian federal governments.
The tipping point has long gone. Fake news, covid-19 misinformation, anti-vaccinations, American gun laws, white supremacy, racism, fascism…
Facebook is trying to govern how all of this is discussed on their platform.
And we’re still treading water.
