Thursday, January 30, 2020
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
The Origin Story - Part 3
Flash forward - Ouch! Blocked by facebook again! What have I done? Only shared free educational English videos. That is all I do, other than occasionally comment on others' posts to encourage them and help them with English.
Now flash back to the Origin Story - Part 2. Where I last left you, I had been stabbed in the back by a rival. This unnamed person was given the power to block me completely from using my facebook account until I changed my profile name. So, with no other choice, I changed my name to my full legal name and went back to my account. Here, I had to inform all of my contacts that I had changed my profile name. This is not such a big deal. The thing that bothered me the most was that facebook gives an inordinate amount of power directly to complete strangers to block you from using your own account, again, this is only if you are not using your full legal name and if a complete stranger wants to pick a fight with you.
I went back to my social media work of promoting our free educational tutorials and started joining groups and posting links to our English videos. At first, this worked quite well. We were providing the kind of content that facebook users use facebook for: free educational tutorial videos. Then facebook policy reared its ugly head again. During a particularly intense sharing session, I received a message that I had "violated community standards" and was therefore blocked from posting in any more groups. What??? What kind of community has standards that prevent people from sharing free education???
This reminded me of a story I saw on US news a few years ago. A group of concerned citizens began offering free food to homeless people in the state of Florida, and they were arrested and charged as criminals for doing so. What kind of policy is this?
After I received this message, I was given the option to "appeal" (I put this word in quotes as I now am nearly certain that no one at all reads anyone's appeals). The form states that if I disagreed with this blocking action, I could inform facebook and explain myself. So I did. I wrote a long heated paragraph about what I was doing and how silly it seemed to me to block someone who is offering free educational content. The robot returned with a thank you for sharing message, chewed up my words, and spit them into a bottomless void.
I followed the next step, which was to try to understand which community standards I had violated and carefully read facebook's policies. Nowhere on the list does it warn people not to share free educational content. Instead, the only thing I could find that was remotely related to my case was a vague reference to posting too much. I assumed that this was the policy that I had violated, so I looked more closely. Upon further investigation, there are no definitive and informative rules at all regarding posting frequency or amount. Instead, they basically say (I paraphrase here) do not post too much. What the...???
Imagine this scenario: You are driving your car and decide that you need to stop to do some shopping. You see a sign that says "Park Here". You stop your car, park within the lines, and get out to shop. When you return to your car, you notice a policeman has called a tow truck to take away your car. You ask him to explain. He smiles, gives you a ticket, and says "you parked here for too long!"
"Whatever are you talking about?" you reply.
"It says in the rules that you cannot park here for too long," he smirks.
"What rules?"
"The ones in my pocket here," he snickers and draws out a little rule book. He ruffles through the pages, finds a small paragraph in fine print, and reads the rule "You cannot park in a Park Here spot for too long."
You squint and look carefully. Sure enough, it does say what he said, hidden away in the middle of a rule book, written in fine print, and kept securely in his back pocket.
"How long is too long?" you ask.
"Why are you asking me? I only work here." He laughs a little too hard. At this point, you see a little smoke coming out from the back of his neck. Then you hear a squeaking and a beeping noise. It's a robot! You realize that you are dealing with a pre-programmed machine: the facebook algorithm. The algorithm just follows rules, just does what it is told, and does not recognize one car from another. You watch sadly as your car gets towed away into the distance to who knows where...
"When can I get my car back?"
"I am not telling you." He beeps, squeaks, and shambles away.
That, dear readers, was how it seemed to me regarding my first taste of the facebook algorithm monster. It had somehow identified me as a spammer due to my active nature. It could not recognize the difference between spam (unwanted advertising) and free educational content. On top of all that, no one ever investigated or replied to my appeal, and I was not given any details for exactly why I had been blocked nor for how long I would be blocked. Thanks, facebook!
Ever so much more to come...
Now flash back to the Origin Story - Part 2. Where I last left you, I had been stabbed in the back by a rival. This unnamed person was given the power to block me completely from using my facebook account until I changed my profile name. So, with no other choice, I changed my name to my full legal name and went back to my account. Here, I had to inform all of my contacts that I had changed my profile name. This is not such a big deal. The thing that bothered me the most was that facebook gives an inordinate amount of power directly to complete strangers to block you from using your own account, again, this is only if you are not using your full legal name and if a complete stranger wants to pick a fight with you.
I went back to my social media work of promoting our free educational tutorials and started joining groups and posting links to our English videos. At first, this worked quite well. We were providing the kind of content that facebook users use facebook for: free educational tutorial videos. Then facebook policy reared its ugly head again. During a particularly intense sharing session, I received a message that I had "violated community standards" and was therefore blocked from posting in any more groups. What??? What kind of community has standards that prevent people from sharing free education???
This reminded me of a story I saw on US news a few years ago. A group of concerned citizens began offering free food to homeless people in the state of Florida, and they were arrested and charged as criminals for doing so. What kind of policy is this?
After I received this message, I was given the option to "appeal" (I put this word in quotes as I now am nearly certain that no one at all reads anyone's appeals). The form states that if I disagreed with this blocking action, I could inform facebook and explain myself. So I did. I wrote a long heated paragraph about what I was doing and how silly it seemed to me to block someone who is offering free educational content. The robot returned with a thank you for sharing message, chewed up my words, and spit them into a bottomless void.
I followed the next step, which was to try to understand which community standards I had violated and carefully read facebook's policies. Nowhere on the list does it warn people not to share free educational content. Instead, the only thing I could find that was remotely related to my case was a vague reference to posting too much. I assumed that this was the policy that I had violated, so I looked more closely. Upon further investigation, there are no definitive and informative rules at all regarding posting frequency or amount. Instead, they basically say (I paraphrase here) do not post too much. What the...???
Imagine this scenario: You are driving your car and decide that you need to stop to do some shopping. You see a sign that says "Park Here". You stop your car, park within the lines, and get out to shop. When you return to your car, you notice a policeman has called a tow truck to take away your car. You ask him to explain. He smiles, gives you a ticket, and says "you parked here for too long!"
"Whatever are you talking about?" you reply.
"It says in the rules that you cannot park here for too long," he smirks.
"What rules?"
"The ones in my pocket here," he snickers and draws out a little rule book. He ruffles through the pages, finds a small paragraph in fine print, and reads the rule "You cannot park in a Park Here spot for too long."
You squint and look carefully. Sure enough, it does say what he said, hidden away in the middle of a rule book, written in fine print, and kept securely in his back pocket.
"How long is too long?" you ask.
"Why are you asking me? I only work here." He laughs a little too hard. At this point, you see a little smoke coming out from the back of his neck. Then you hear a squeaking and a beeping noise. It's a robot! You realize that you are dealing with a pre-programmed machine: the facebook algorithm. The algorithm just follows rules, just does what it is told, and does not recognize one car from another. You watch sadly as your car gets towed away into the distance to who knows where...
"When can I get my car back?"
"I am not telling you." He beeps, squeaks, and shambles away.
That, dear readers, was how it seemed to me regarding my first taste of the facebook algorithm monster. It had somehow identified me as a spammer due to my active nature. It could not recognize the difference between spam (unwanted advertising) and free educational content. On top of all that, no one ever investigated or replied to my appeal, and I was not given any details for exactly why I had been blocked nor for how long I would be blocked. Thanks, facebook!
Ever so much more to come...
Monday, January 27, 2020
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
The Origin Story - Part 2
This is a continuation of my very first post. For those of you who have
just joined me, I recommend that you go back to my first post (The Origin Story
- Part 1) in order to gain some context regarding this blog and this entry.
...Then came the dark side...In my first foray into groups outside of my own making, I wanted to share the first Thai English tutorial that my wife and I made for the students in our university that needed help passing their English exit exam. I ventured into a group of strangers who happened to be English teachers in the same country as me, offered my background story, and shared the link to our video. In doing so, I aroused the ire of an elementary school teacher who impatiently jumped on our video in order to profess his unending wisdom and knowledge regarding teaching philosophy. He bitterly complained about the use of Thai in our video and the proficiency level of the questions, all the while crowing about how his grade school students could easily answer any of those questions and that we were quite ridiculous for using Thai to teach English. I calmly explained to him through the comment section of my post that Thailand is full of university students who cannot answer that level of question, that they cannot understand English instruction regarding these questions, and finally that this video was not intended for any other viewers.
I must admit that the rest of my story regarding this young fellow is heavily based on my assumptions to which you may or may not agree. I believe that he fumed at being reasonably corrected, got a buddy to agree with his point of view, and jumped onto my YouTube channel with his buddy to flame our video. He and his buddy posted negative comments based on the very same argument I had already refuted in the facebook post. I replied to him once again on the YouTube comments, again publicly pointing out the error of his own assumptions and telling his friend that he was also making erroneous assumptions regarding the level of proficiency of Thais in general and the method used to teach them. I also added that I agreed with them regarding not using the native language to teach higher level learners. All handled, right?
Immediately following these exchanges, which all happened within about 24 hours, I was blocked from using my facebook account. I was faced with the message that someone (Gee, I wonder who?) had complained about my user name and that I would have to prove that my legal name included the word Ajarn in it in order to access my account. WHAAAAA......????
Think about that for a moment. Facebook has given complete strangers more power over your account than you have unless your name exactly matches your legal documents. How many of you can say that is true? I know literally thousands of people who do not use their legal name on their facebook account. Every single one of them, and you as well if you are not using your real name, are at the mercy of any insecure person with a grudge against you! How is that for an unfair policy?
Again I surmise here, but I think that my sparring partner knew well that my title meant 'university teacher' and that he felt insecure about his own life and job as a primary school teacher. He could not live with being publicly 'schooled' by me and had to try to stab me in the back in any way he could. So, my final question for this post, my dear readers, who provided him with the knife?
Where we last left off,
I had hinted at (understatement) my anger at facebook's policies. I would like
to temper that a little to make clear that I do not actually hate facebook.
Instead, I would consider myself being in a love/hate relationship with it. In
order for you to more fully understand this, I would like to take you back to
the beginning again.
When I first waded into
the seemingly inviting waters of facebook groups, I had had relatively minor
exposure to social media in general and facebook in particular. I had recently opened an account in order to keep in contact with my students, but more specifically to reduce the amount of waste created by my assignments to my students. Due to these assignments and my dislike for social media in general, I had amassed an embarrassing amount of industrial waste in the form of used CDs and DVDs in my desk drawer. As an advocate for a green lifestyle, I was truly ashamed and forced myself to reconsider my position regarding social media. I would have to learn to put up with the never-ending posts regarding peoples' pets and hobbies, bite the bullet, and face the music.
At first, it worked like a charm. This is the positive side of facebook. It was likely created for just this purpose: teachers keeping up with their students and offering a digital platform for the exchange of lessons and assignments. I was able to save the Earth from a massive amount of plastic waste and keep in touch with my students at the same time. I began to form groups for all of my classes and signed up all of my students as my friends so that they could message me in an emergency. At that time, I used my title before my name as my profile name: Ajarn Robert Eastland, which roughly translates to 'teacher at a university', then my name. So far, so good...
...Then came the dark side...In my first foray into groups outside of my own making, I wanted to share the first Thai English tutorial that my wife and I made for the students in our university that needed help passing their English exit exam. I ventured into a group of strangers who happened to be English teachers in the same country as me, offered my background story, and shared the link to our video. In doing so, I aroused the ire of an elementary school teacher who impatiently jumped on our video in order to profess his unending wisdom and knowledge regarding teaching philosophy. He bitterly complained about the use of Thai in our video and the proficiency level of the questions, all the while crowing about how his grade school students could easily answer any of those questions and that we were quite ridiculous for using Thai to teach English. I calmly explained to him through the comment section of my post that Thailand is full of university students who cannot answer that level of question, that they cannot understand English instruction regarding these questions, and finally that this video was not intended for any other viewers.
I must admit that the rest of my story regarding this young fellow is heavily based on my assumptions to which you may or may not agree. I believe that he fumed at being reasonably corrected, got a buddy to agree with his point of view, and jumped onto my YouTube channel with his buddy to flame our video. He and his buddy posted negative comments based on the very same argument I had already refuted in the facebook post. I replied to him once again on the YouTube comments, again publicly pointing out the error of his own assumptions and telling his friend that he was also making erroneous assumptions regarding the level of proficiency of Thais in general and the method used to teach them. I also added that I agreed with them regarding not using the native language to teach higher level learners. All handled, right?
Immediately following these exchanges, which all happened within about 24 hours, I was blocked from using my facebook account. I was faced with the message that someone (Gee, I wonder who?) had complained about my user name and that I would have to prove that my legal name included the word Ajarn in it in order to access my account. WHAAAAA......????
Think about that for a moment. Facebook has given complete strangers more power over your account than you have unless your name exactly matches your legal documents. How many of you can say that is true? I know literally thousands of people who do not use their legal name on their facebook account. Every single one of them, and you as well if you are not using your real name, are at the mercy of any insecure person with a grudge against you! How is that for an unfair policy?
Again I surmise here, but I think that my sparring partner knew well that my title meant 'university teacher' and that he felt insecure about his own life and job as a primary school teacher. He could not live with being publicly 'schooled' by me and had to try to stab me in the back in any way he could. So, my final question for this post, my dear readers, who provided him with the knife?
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Friday, January 17, 2020
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Monday, January 13, 2020
The Origin Story - Part 1
Hello to all who have found me here. I am starting this blog primarily due to my frustration with facebook's algorithm and lack of human customer support and human ideals. A conclusion has been reached by me (not so difficult a conclusion to surmise) that facebook is all about the cash and absolutely unconcerned with basic human morality. This should not surprise anyone who is familiar the psychological profile of the founder. I desperately need an outlet to express my utter disgust at the way they have handled, and continue to handle, my case.
Let me give you a little of the background to my angst. I am a native English speaking teacher from Canada. I am currently working at a university abroad, teaching English in several different international programs. My wife also works at the same university, teaching English at the Faculty of General Education. As part of her duties, she was asked to create an exit exam tutorial to help our students pass their English exit exam. We made a short tutorial video with the lowest possible tech (we had no editing software, no camera, and a very cheap, bad microphone).
We handed it in to the admin of the uni, who posted it on their YouTube channel, and thought no more about it, presuming that was the end of the story. Ten months later, we inadvertently discovered that our lousy little short video with poor sound already had nearly 5,000 views. So, we thought, why not do it right? If people are actually going to watch and learn from our tutorials, at the very least they deserve good sound. We ordered a good microphone, started our own YouTube channel, and made a second video.
After editing and producing our second similar tutorial video, with much, much better sound quality, we quickly realized that in order to be moderately successful at teaching people, we needed people to teach. Our journey towards increasing our audience began on facebook...
(more next time)
Let me give you a little of the background to my angst. I am a native English speaking teacher from Canada. I am currently working at a university abroad, teaching English in several different international programs. My wife also works at the same university, teaching English at the Faculty of General Education. As part of her duties, she was asked to create an exit exam tutorial to help our students pass their English exit exam. We made a short tutorial video with the lowest possible tech (we had no editing software, no camera, and a very cheap, bad microphone).
We handed it in to the admin of the uni, who posted it on their YouTube channel, and thought no more about it, presuming that was the end of the story. Ten months later, we inadvertently discovered that our lousy little short video with poor sound already had nearly 5,000 views. So, we thought, why not do it right? If people are actually going to watch and learn from our tutorials, at the very least they deserve good sound. We ordered a good microphone, started our own YouTube channel, and made a second video.
After editing and producing our second similar tutorial video, with much, much better sound quality, we quickly realized that in order to be moderately successful at teaching people, we needed people to teach. Our journey towards increasing our audience began on facebook...
(more next time)
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