Recently I had an opportunity to shed some psychological and emotional dead weight. Actually it wasn’t so much an opportunity as a corporate mandate of sorts. After having a Facebook account for over fourteen years I was unceremoniously dumped from the platform, not once, but twice in short succession.
This decision, apparently made by the faceless AI algorithms at Facebook, came as somewhat of a shock to me. The first time it happened I received a short message explaining that my account had been suspended due to the determination that I appeared to be under age and therefore did not qualify for an account. The notice stated that I had the right to appeal, only once, and that after the appeal was reviewed, if it was determined that I still did not qualify for an account for breaking their terms of service, my account would be permanently suspended with no other appeals or recourse available to me. This was accompanied by a demand that I provide them with proof that I was who I stated I was on my account by sending them a copy of a legal government issued document proving my age.
I found this disappointing, disingenuous and disturbing. Had there been an actual human face behind the demand, or a way to contact a human employee, I could have easily requested that they review my account where they would find that I was the owner of the account for more years than the legal stated age of thirteen years to have one. As it stands there is no way available, to my knowledge anyway, to access a human at Facebook. Facebook is ironically faceless. I provided the required documents, waited the obligatory twenty-four or more hours for a decision to be made and received another notice stating that their decision was final and I would no longer have access to my account, or pages, with my 4,000 connections which I had worked several years building and nurturing for business purposes, not pleasure. I felt fooled by a corporate entity who seemed to care little for anything other than what using my personal statistics could mean to them in revenue.
I did my best to shrug off this inane decision and proceeded to create another account. This one lasted all of a week before I received another notice. It was nearly the same as the one previous to it with one exception; there was no indication of how or what infraction I had committed to violate their terms of service, and no accompanying explanation. Once again I was asked to send proof of who I am. I did and within a couple of days received another dry notice that the Facebook decision would stand. Fooled twice.
I could rant, I could go on other platforms and threaten this, that or another thing and be no further along than I am today. Instead I’ve decided instead to take a holistic view of the incident and simply move on to something more positive in the form of this web site and blog. I can truly says that I’ve shed a very large and toxic psychological and emotional dead weight in the form of Facebook and learned a good lesson about putting too many proverbial socially connected eggs in an increasingly larger yet strangely shrinking basket of value. Ranting in a negative context serves no real purpose and flies in the face of my belief of why I’m on this planet for only a short period of time. Instead I’ve determined to reach out in a more holistic way through the positive and uplifting words, images and materials I choose to share on this Blog and web site.
I feel no need to pursue a lost cause. Anyone who has been a dutiful user of Facebook for any period of time must realize by now that their current business model no longer serves a positive purpose in terms of nurturing and maintaining meaningful social connections. The platform has evolved from a useful tool for personal and professional discourse into a megalithic behemoth whose purpose appears to be to sow discord instead of meaningful discussion. My gut feeling is that the actual purpose of the platform is data mining for several prominent three letter organizations, which law abiding citizens pay taxes for, to maintain an open back door to personal user information. What better way to keep tabs on the likes of a whole citizenry, both domestic and foreign? For the record; I’m not a criminal, have no criminal intent, and want no part in a police surveillance state. What I do want is the freedom to exercise critical thinking and my First Amendment rights to free speech. It’s my hope that you do too.
This web site, its Blog, forum and images are and will remain dedicated to those who believe that being free requires exercising freedom through all meaningful and peaceful means, where ever and when ever possible. It may be April Fools day today but none of us deserve to either serve or be the fools for the fools that feel we already are, unless we willfully choose to be.
© 2022 Michael D. Davis - All Rights Reserved
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