It came to our attention yesterday when we were sharing WUWT articles, that Facebook now treats WUWT articles as “abusive”. Apparently this is a new tactic of the warmists to abuse the FB abuse process in order to suppress free speech. WUWT readers have reported that this has also started happening on other skeptic blogs with their articles.
Until Anthony gets back, when we can see about a more permanent solution, we want to encourage our readers to all share WUWT articles via your Facebook accounts, and when FB gives you “this is an abusive site” pop-up, as seen in the graphic above, to click the “Let us know” appeal link to submit an appeal. Hopefully if FB staff start seeing enough appeals from enough of our readers, that they will realize that their system is being gamed by our opponents.
While on FB, we encourage you to join the WUWT FB group.
UPDATE: As of this moment, new WUWT articles are posting to FB without the abuse warning, but anything from yesterday or days prior is getting the warning and requires an appeal. Apparently whoever has been up to these games hasn’t gotten online yet today. We still encourage our readers to help ensure that WUWT articles are able to be shared on FB without interference, and to ensure that other skeptic blogs are also able to be published on Facebook. It’s clear that the warmists are engaging in guerrilla tactics now.
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mikelorrey (April 9, 2011 at 3:26 pm)
You cite Marsh vs. Alabama:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
That case does not even remotely apply to the sort of censorship under discussion here. The censorship under discussion here is contemptible. But, it would be even more contemptible for the heavy hand of government to FORCIBLY prevent private individuals and/or private companies from engaging in contemptible censorship. Let “the invisible hand of the market” judge them!
I attribute my problem with the eclectic array of my friends and their friends. Some of them are fanatic “progressives” and will flag anything that goes counter to their world view as “offensive” or “abuse” or whatever. It has been my experience that this sort of behavior is quite common among people on the left who want to themselves be quite vocal yet do whatever is in their power to silence any information from the “other” side of an issue.
They seem to experience a different opinion as a direct attack on themselves. In other words, they internalize any view different from theirs as an attack on their view and on them. So to them, it is “abusive” or “offensive”. They just never learned that it is ok for people to have different opinions. I don’t find this sort of behavior nearly as often among people in the center or right of center, it seems to be a phenomenon of the political left.
Anyway, I live in the San Francisco bay area and count among my honest and true friends and number of people who might be considered raving “moonbats”. So I suspect the source of my linking issues on Facebook are people flagging any link I might post that goes counter to their personal world view. I can post links on wall entries, I just can’t post links in comments.
Here in Australia we have a similar problem. When there is a demonstration against our government’s planned carbon (sic) tax, the government highlights a few abusive or silly placards and demands a complete backdown from the government’s critics. Needless to say, demonstrations on behalf of politically correct causes are rife with vile invective, yet attract no criticism from our government.
Why do I feel like I am living in the Soviet Union, where facts are what the political fancy of the day say they are; despite the evidence of the lying eyes of the population.
It appears that the radical AGW Alarmists will use every dirty trick in the book to silence those who disagree.
SBVOR,
Actually, you are quite wrong, as the wikipedia article you cite states, that a company owned town couldn’t use an anti-trespassing statute to prevent people from passing out religious materials in public, i.e. exercising their freedom of speech.
If the global warming alarmists take Face Book, we’re doomed.
/sarc
FYI, Goldman Sachs is now a major investor with Facebook. And as most people know, Goldman Sachs wants to be a major player in the carbon dioxide trading scam.
just tried to link this and was blocked as this is an ‘abusive’ site… facebook are losers
Second time round, succeeded in linking…what the hell
is going on with these people…
blocked again…Facebook are the abusers…
crosspatch (April 9, 2011 at 3:51 pm),
Living in the People’s Republic of Steamboat Springs, I can relate. Our (dominant) local Leftists make Berkeley look downright moderate.
For the average Leftist, their entire identity is defined by their political ideology. And, their political ideology is best described as a totalitarian, political religious ideology. But, even that falls short of the mark (because we are really talking about a totalitarian, political religious cult). This religious cult mentality means that their entire “moral compass” (such as it is) is defined by the tenets of this totalitarian political religious cult.
Ergo, any divergence from their political, religious dogma is viewed as a direct assault not only upon their (collective) identity, but upon their very moral core (such as it is). Hence, they adopt an “ends justifies the means” mentality in suppressing anything and everything which challenges that dogma — a dogma which is entirely rooted in mythology and can never stand up to the light of day.
In other words…
The “Progressive” ideology can ONLY survive in an absolute intellectual vacuum.
Because…
The entire “Progressive” ideology is PURE mythology!
By the end of this sunspot cycle they will want to get in bed with us, put their cold feet against our backs and try to get warm.
mikelorrey (April 9, 2011 at 4:05 pm),
For the benefit of other readers…
You are disputing assertions I made in a comment bearing the time stamp April 9, 2011 at 3:50 pm (wherein I challenged your assertions regarding Marsh v. Alabama):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
1) If, in Marsh v. Alabama, the co-defendant had been an individual store owner, there would be a more direct analogy to the censorship we are currently discussing. In such a case, it is certain the co-defendant would have prevailed.
2) I would say that Marsh v. Alabama was wrongly decided — see Reed’s dissenting opinion. Like Reed, I do NOT accept the assertion that allowing the public onto private property confers upon that public all the rights they enjoy on public property. Any assertion to that effect is, in fact, a direct assault upon private property rights (and part of a very large campaign from the Left to completely eliminate private property rights).
3) If one were to conjure a more direct cyberspace analogy to Marsh v. Alabama, it would involve an ISP limiting your speech across their entire domain. The AOL case cited within the previous link is precisely such a case. And, that case was correctly decided in AOL’s favor. I would argue that the AOL case effectively (and properly) overturned Marsh v. Alabama. If you dug into the makeup of the 1946 Supreme Court which (wrongly) decided Marsh v. Alabama, I suspect you would find FDR had packed that court with big government “Progressives”.
Private property rights should trump free speech rights every time.
Tried it. Got blocked. Sent a complaint to Facebook. Awaiting a reply.
Postscript to my previous comment…
The 1946 Supreme Court which wrongly decided Marsh v. Alabama was the same FDR packed big government “Progressive” Supreme Court which wrongly decided that the government had the right to intern citizens of Japanese ancestry in Relocation Centers:
http://www.infoplease.com/cig/supreme-court/stone-court-1941-to-1946.html
Today, I was debating someone about climate change on a news site thread, nothing abusive, just stating pure facts with links to prove my case, I was blocked and now I can’t post on any public comments on Facebook and it say my account might get closed.
Is this NAZI Germany?
Of course Farcebook is full of useful idiots, just as those driving the US to the brink of economic disaster. However, since Google is the primature representation of politicized AGW and closely associated with Farcebook, what they’re doing should come as no surprise.
I was able to post an article to Facebook from WUWT! I have the “AddThis” add-on installed in my Firefox browser and the Facebook link in this taskbar worked!! This may be a workaround until we can get Facebook straightened out. See http://www.addthis.com.
This is very interesting….. have just discovered that my blog (which is as nonthreatening as could be, I would think) has been similiarly targeted.
In my case I think it’s an ex who wants to shut me down….. but very scary that some haters could cause so much havoc?
7min onwards very interesting
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_pawlyn_using_nature_s_genius_in_architecture.html
About how Julius Caesar came across plants in the Sahara, and how plants are the key to whether something is lush or a desert.
I tried earlier with addthis and it was blocked… so if you were successful now, it may be our protests are working. Its absurd that this site would be blocked when Islam sites threatening Jews, dog fighting and Nazi sites, etc., have remained despite complaints on FB? Useful idiots are so hard to comprehend…
And you think Facebook is woth a rat’s fart in hell?
I don’t.
Note to Facebook and Google: You are treading on thin ice (worse than we thought) .. and remember this, Easy Come, Easy Go!!!
I urge all readers to tweet this entry multiple times, and then close their Facebook accounts immediately. Facebook has every legal right to block whomever they please.
And we have every right to boycott them. Let’s do it!