Easy Mistake to Make

Image by ijmaki from Pixabay

Kvetch

While my General Gayety blog has its own website, most people read my offerings on the General Gayety Facebook page. Imagine my chagrin, then, to receive a notice from Facebook about five weeks ago that a photo I'd posted last June had violated its standards, and I was forbidden from posting for 30 days.

You might remember the photo in question, even though it was eight months old. It showed a white man in KKK garb holding a sign about white people having "superior jeans." In front a Black woman giggled. The picture clearly poked fun at white supremacists. At least I thought it was clear. And brilliant.

I don't know whether Facebook has humans, algorithms or untrained monkeys reviewing posts, but apparently I got caught in big social media's effort to reduce hate speech following the Capitol siege, and this photo was believed to be supporting white supremacy when it was doing the opposite.

I immediately appealed the decision, and quickly received word back that amounted to "We goofed." Okay, everyone's entitled to a mistake. Let's move on.

Or not. Though Facebook had wrongly singled me out for hate speech, and admitted its mistake, it still blocked me from posting anything for 30 days.

To what, I wondered, would my audience attribute my sudden silence? That after Trump departed the White House I collapsed from exhaustion?

The final insult was losing followers, who drifted away when they didn't see posts. Over the years, I've paid for Facebook ads to boost the number of page followers. Now I was shedding followers through Facebook's mistake. I believe I'm owed free advertising and chocolate.

I'm still in some sort of purgatory, as I'm not allowed to "boost" any posts, meaning pay to publicize them. Facebook still views me as a threat to trumpet white supremacy.

I'm owed free advertising and BELGIAN chocolate.