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...