Disability Campaigner Removed By Facebook – Same Difference
Another disturbing development on Facebook, brought to you via Same Difference:
Campaigner and reader Gail Ward posted something on Facebook last night that I’m not at all happy to hear. That is that our fellow disability rights campaigner, Tisme’s Cares, has had her account removed by Facebook.
I caan only assume that this is beause she does not follow their ‘real name’ policy.
Tisme’s Cares does a lot of good work for disabled people and carers through Facebook. She shares useful information and requests advice for her followers and friends.
Gail Ward wannts to try to get Tisme’s Cares’ Facebook account reinstated. In this, Gail Ward has the full support of Same Difference.
Updated 10.45: Gail Ward has now set up a petition. Please sign and share widely.
This development, so soon after Keith Cameron’s ‘A Letter A Day To Number 10’ page was ruined by a hostile takeover, is extremely worrying. It seems that certain elements (and we all know who they are – the people attacked are prominent leftie bloggers) are determined to win the political debate by removing anyone who dares to disagree with their blinkered, small-minded, right-wing point of view. They are all Friends Of Ol’ Lynton (Crosby) to be sure!
How long before they try it on you? Better be prepared for the moment.
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It’s not paranoia if they are out to get you…
Some more people in Keith Cameron’s group have been deleted from Facebook too.
Yet they can have ;removal; of people who don’t dance to there tune! But on the other hand, they let people “who vent” their terror tactics to have free traffic on Face book. R.I.P. Lee Rigby.
It is worrying that Facebook is doing things like this. Including the “Real Name” policy itself – who do they share the information with and to what end?
In the case of Keith Ordinary Guy was perfectly open about who he was, even posting his address publicly. Any idiot having a look through his posts could tell he was who he was. No excuse Facebook!
In other cases, could enforcing real names on people who criticise the government actually expose them to danger of reprisals, both electronic and even physical in the run up to the election?
In the past I would have laughed at that suggestion, here in the UK.
This “Coalition” government’s track record on abuse of basic Human Rights, deliberate abuse of those who are sick or disabled and their general acts of restriction on freedom to protest, not to mention the Privatisation of public spaces and the policing of same, makes me think that for the first time since the Second World War there is significant danger to critics of The Government.
If Facebook fails to not just Be Neutral, but be seen clearly to be so between now and the election then they need to be brought to justice. They will certainly pay a heavy price one way or the other. Problem is it needs to be sorted before any damage is done to freedom of speech in the UK.
Facebook sell on all of your details to corporate interests – that’s how FB makes its money. FB is also an arm of the American CIA and useful tool for Five Eyes. FB is guilty of corporate censorship which is illegal under UK law but of course US’ law trumps national laws in its subservient nations.
Mike I’ve had it happen to me in the past 24 hours, though no specific reason has been given – only that they think I’m a business, a brand or a public figure and should therefore have a page rather than a personal profile. It is virtually impossible to appeal, given that the appeal form you’re supposed to use includes a not-working ‘upload proof of ID’ button which is a required field. I’ve emailed a number of different FB email addresses trying to get the decision reversed – including [email protected] and [email protected] – no response yet.
The difference between me and Tisme is that I do (did) actually follow the naming guidelines… the name “Debs” is allowed as a shortened form of “Deborah”, according to the T&Cs.
Given what’s happened to Tisme, and Keith Ordinary Guy, and now me, I can only assume Facebook is slowly but surely curtailing the free speech of its more left-leaning customers (and I am indeed a customer, having spent a small fortune there on game credits over the years).
I think this situation deserves a full and thorough investigation and a lot of publicity. Facebook are acting like total fascists at the moment, and disabling accounts without explaining why (other than vague, non-personalised statements about needing to have a page instead of a personal profile).
One other scenario I wouldn’t rule out is that I made a leftist comment which pissed off a right winger, and they decided it would be jolly larks to report me as a ‘fake’ profile. But if that’s the case, you’d think Facebook would give me an opportunity to defend myself, wouldn’t you?
What’s really laughable is the fact that I have – completely against FB’s T&Cs – a further 9 accounts, all of which have silly made-up names, which I’ve been using for years in social gaming (helping me complete goals etc). None of these has ever been challenged by FB, but my REAL account, where I quite clearly am doing ‘personal’ stuff like sharing videos of my grandson among all my more political rants, is the one that gets banned. I just don’t get it…
I would be interested to see what happened if someone complained about a random ‘right-leaning’ facebook page.
Petition signed.
Jack Monroe was being targeted even before the #CameronMustGo tweet: this blogpost from 3 Nov says she has had her page removed twice in two months, most recently for the ludicrous reason of pornography http://agirlcalledjack.com/2014/11/03/dear-facebook-there-is-no-porn-on-my-page-again/
This grubby scheme has the feel of the Shapps-Green-Fox trinity about it. One of his few skills seemed to be hiding multiple keywords in websites to bump them up the search rankings. A programme (or his bought Facebook friends) that searched for leftie words and phrases on Facebook then reported the site for a random violation sounds right up his street.
My fiance had to change his name (hopefully it’s a temporary thing) because the powers that be decided that “Gideon Lawrence” couldn’t possibly be a real name. It is. So he’s going to have to provide them with proof that that’s actually his name.
I’ve a feeling that after the real name crackdown there will be a photo crackdown where it will have to be your face on your profile pic at all times. How handy will that be for the authorities, it’ll be just like a database!
Yesterday quite a large number of people joined Tsu (tsu.co) which is a more basic social media platform but still comfortable to be part of. At the moment it’s really a backup/fallback position that we can use in conjunction with Twitter to keep the message rolling, but if FB carries on with the way they’re going, it will become home to many of us and FB will have to find a whole load of new people to appease their advertisers’ need for attention. With the majority of youngsters now heading for Tumblr, and older people heading for tinder – by all accounts anyway – FB’s share of the social market audience would shrink significantly.
The simple fact is that we do not actually NEED FB – FB needs US. We could spread all over the web’s many SM platforms if we wished, and still remain in touch, simply by cross-posting links to Twitter and using it as a hub.
Keith Ordinary Guy has become another victim of FASCISM. The basis of which is if you don’t like it make it illegal or delete it. Does FACEBOOK realise that they are coming close to participation in what was called “Crimes against Humanity” in 1945. Own name policy what an anathema – right now I can think of many people who are not on facebook who are genuine living individuals who could have their names used for any amount of facebook accounts. What facebook have done is tie a huge rope around their neck. Maybe they have done it because of requests from UK, maybe they are co-operating with anti terrorist legislation. I suspect its a measure of control that in short makes sure that we are kept in our place while reassuring us it’s for our own good. Is that being too cynical?
Isn`t this going to have more of an effect on bloggers re: ‘real names’?
Amazed that they`ll have to re-start pages, yet nasty pieces of work like ‘Spotted. Benefit Scrounger’ & ‘Support Workfare’ can carry on regardless