Over the past few months, I have noticed a considerable uptick in the amount of notifications/warnings I am receiving from both Facebook and LinkedIn.
Yes, they are all in regard to posts that are not exactly flattering to the right wing of the American Eagle. But yes, they are also my opinions and they do not come anywhere near the fiery furnace of slander. At best they are critical, at worst they are not flattering to the people I am writing about.
But then again, I am in no way exaggerating reality in my descriptions. Nor am I wishing harm or threatening anyone in any way. Hell, I’m an old guy in Canada who needs a walker to get around. You can be sure I’m not stalking anyone.
The trouble is that these platforms, in what I can only assume in an optimistic way, are trying to diminish the amount of spam and bot-driven propaganda that has been cluttering things up.
These sites are also worried that the rules governing their behaviour are now under great scrutiny, so they have adjusted their algorithms to Ultra Sensitive, which I assume put me into the same category as some right-wing fanatic pumpin’ out his semi-literate I luv Trump drivel.
All this censorship is designed with one purpose in mind and that is to show you the absolute futility of trying to post anything that even remotely smacks of criticism.
I’m pretty sure they are doing this because, in marketing terms, they believe it dilutes their brand. This of course is a leaky boat since anything related to politics eventually affects business in one way or another.
The other reason, and I think this probably makes more sense, is that these sites envision a time when they will be held responsible for any slanderous posts that make out into the world by way of their sites. And lord knows there are legions of hungry lawyers out there, just aching to get a chunk of Microsoft’s and Facebook’s billions.
The long and short of it is that I have totally lost my desire to joust with these knaves. I have recently found a new site called Tribel that, contrary to LI and FB, very much appears to invite the politically inclined to bring it on. Maybe they saw the same trend that I did. Or maybe they just really and truly believe in freedom of speech.
Doesn’t matter. I just hope I don’t start getting a lot of messages from the people who miss my angry Canadian guy stuff. That would make me feel bad, but only for a minute or two.
