Facebook’s latest bans ~ I am a dangerous individual.
I am a dangerous individual. I hang out with other dangerous individuals in England, and we associate with dangerous groups.
This is how the Guardian reports Facebook’s actions this morning.
Facebook bans far-right groups including BNP, EDL and Britain First
Number of organisations and individuals permanently banned for being ‘dangerous’
The ban, which came into effect at midday on Thursday, extends beyond the groups and individuals specifically cited as hate organisations: posts and other content that “expresses praise or support” for them will also be banned, as will users who coordinate support for the groups.
This sweep of ‘users’ was a broad one and caught me up in the time it took me to leave my computer to load my washing machine this morning. The FB account I use for my work here was ‘deactivated’ which wasn’t as painful as one of Stalin’s ‘liquidations’ but is certainly sinister. Friends suffered a similar fate.
I can’t read all of her article as I can’t get behind the Independent’s Paywall but anti-Tommy Robinson (already banned some weeks ago) reporter there Lizzie Dearden (Lizzie Dearden took an axe and gave free speech a mighty whack) says
Facebook became one of the far-right’s biggest recruitment tools: For the British far right, Facebook was used for everything from event organisation to fundraising, networking, publicity and, most importantly, drawing in new recruits. And they were phenomenally successful.
…Extremists will find it much harder to draw new support after the social network’s latest purge.
Even the Unilad website, which used to be very politically incorrect to the point of boorishness, but has reinvented itself after a shutdown in 2012, approves. One Julia Banim (Jules to her friends at cookery and yoga class) writes
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
A left-leaning phrase I have encountered rather too often recently in my personal life.
Meanwhile left-wing and Islamic groups flourish. A quick check shows plenty of national and regional Antifa pages, one purporting to be the Islamic state page, Hope not Hate are self-aggrandising as usual, the Communist party cross-linked from the Morning Star (guest writer Jeremy Corbyn) only 5 minutes ago.
But, there is more than one way to kill a cat than smothering it with cream. We won’t be silenced. Not on Brexit, not on the Islamisation of our country, not on any of the other dangers that menace our way of life.
If you think we are quiet, then that is when we are truly dangerous.
On reflection; I always related to Penfold, the bespectacled Civil Servant side-kick to magnificent British agent Danger Mouse. Maybe I was wrong….
And the Swinging London of my childhood was a rather cool place to grow up.