The Unalloyed Power of Facebook

So. Weirdly enough, this whole website was blocked by Facebook in the summer of 2019.

If you tried to post a link to it, even in a seemingly private Facebook Messenger conversation, Facebook would block it. Both the Google Site address and my own private domain name.

In fact, every occurrence in any Facebook conversation ever retroactively vanished. Not just the mention of the link, but the entire post  with the link was expunged. It was like some Soviet commissar airbrushed out of history. Entire conversations suddenly made no sense, as multiple posts were missing.

And it happened twice. The first time I figured it was some sort of algorithmic error, so I bought a new domain name and moved my content to that. Within a month, that new site was slammed down.

Between 3 June 2019 and 3 August 2019 my viewership fell by half. Good thing I'm not trying to make money out of this thing!

How did it happen?

So I obviously must have done something dreadful to deserve such ostracism, right? I'm "violating" their "community standards".

Well, the thing is, I have no idea! They don't even bother to tell you what criterion they're using to block the page. You can "report" the issue, and they thank you for "providing feedback" on your "experience". My "report" on the first ban still sits unanswered months later.

So not only do I not know why my hobbyist information site was suppressed, but there's no real process of appeal. I have no way of knowing if it was a mistake or some deliberate act. Did somebody complain? I have no way of knowing what to do about it.

Then, a couple of months later, Facebook access to my pages was silently reinstated. Again, I have no idea why!

The dark side of the blue logo

Now obviously, Facebook is a private company providing a seemingly harmless service, seemingly for free. Of course, it isn't free. It's just that you, the user, are the product, not the content. But the problem here is the complete lack of transparency and accountability for a massive globe-spanning service that has incredible societal effects.

Already we've seen how Facebook has the power to undermine democracy by facilitating the hijacking of elections and referendums. It's continuously been used to promote hate and other forms of vitriolic ideology. The advertising, especially for dubious products and services (snake oil, anyone?), keeps piling up.

Sure, there's the happy touchy-feely stuff that Facebook does, like reuniting families and letting people post photos of their cat, and promote discussions on fantasy spaceships. But it's really interesting, and quite creepy, to see the complete power and control they have to crush discussion and information if they wish. And who's to stop them? They're a de facto information monopoly with reach and power that oppressive governments dream of.

So. Oh well for me. This is just my hobby site, for fun. Facebook denied maybe hundreds of fellow spaceship enthusiasts access to my frankly useful information web page. Bummer for them. But I have to say that the cold slam of their unfeeling hammer was quite an experience!