Not me.
Not yet, anyway.
But a friend of mine, a fellow writer, was treated to a 24-hour suspension from Facebook for posting 'hate speech' --a link to an article from a legitimate news source about the administration's plan to deport sick immigrants.
Apparently sharing newspaper pieces critical of the administration and 45 counts as hate speech. And it only takes one disgruntled person to flag a posting and trigger a suspension.
Sometimes the suspensions are truly puzzling. Another FB poster was warned that her post about getting more rain was objectionable.
Facebook is free to use--you get what you pay for. And it's not surprising that FB relies on robot responses to complaints about content and isn't quick to respond to the suspendee's explanation.
My friend is back--and purging her 'friend' list in hopes of getting rid of the person who fingered her post as objectionable.
So far I've had no warnings, though I post and share MANY things on FB that are critical of our current administration. And my posts are public.
But most of the rabid 45 supporters have long since removed themselves from my friends list--a few, whose postings I found truly objectionable, I simply de-friended and blocked. Others, with whom I violently disagree, I stopped following so I wouldn't find myself in a pointless argument--though I may check their pages now and then to see if they still love the madman at the helm.
For better or for worse, Facebook is for many of us the public square where we expect to be able to voice our opinions. And, where we may expect, depending on our friends, to hear opposing points of view.
I want to hear what the other side believes--even when it creeps me out and makes me wonder what's wrong with them--where is their humanity?
And I intend to keep posting my objections to what I believe to be the most immoral, corrupt, self-serving, inhumane, egomaniacal, and deeply ignorant individual ever to sit in the Oval Office.
And he's tacky, too. (That's an Ultimate Southern Lady put-down, meaning he has poor taste, i.e. gold furniture, not to mention his taste for dictators.)
Still, the fact that one person can cause Facebook to suspend another's account seems like a disproportionate use of power.
Like, say, Mitch McConnell.
Or the Electoral College.
