Op-ed: Conservatives v. Facebook...and the battle continues on

Op-ed:                                                                                  Conservatives v. Facebook...and the battle continues on

By: Diane Sori

The Facebook gods are still at it, and once again it ain't pretty for those of us on the right.

Targeting conservative bloggers and reporters along with their corresponding sites, starting late Wednesday afternoon, our blogs and sites were marked as spam, and Facebook users were warned the blogs and sites were NOT secure, were potentially corrupted, and advised readers to leave the sites.

Of course none of this was true as most of those tagged are among the most secure and safest of blogs and sites on the Internet.

But imagine my surprise when my little blog, The Patriot Factor (thepatriotfactor.blogspot.com), joined the ranks of the big guns...The Blaze, Fox News, Breitbart, The Examiner, Allen West Republic, and other sites 'of name' in being singled out for this treatment.

Guess my blog has arrived...after all Facebook apparently deems it and me a threat to the left, and therfore needs to be silenced.

Anyway, whenever readers wanted to go to our blogs or sites from our article links on Facebook or tried to share anything we posted, warnings would pop up stating all posts with links to our blogs or sites were being marked as spam. And if you attempted to post anything from our blogs or sites you got the dreaded 'captcha' security check, and little be known from the innocent looking 'captcha' that said it was there to keep you safe, if you submitted this three times in a row you were banned from Facebook for three weeks.

Plus, we bloggers couldn't share anything at all without having to jump through the 'captcha' hoops before each and every post, along with getting warnings to slow down because we're posting too fast or too much...or because we're posting spam...which obviously none of us were.

In other words, FB was systematically trying to shut down conservative voices and conservative voices alone for NO liberal blogger or site has been tagged or has had any such trouble whatsoever.

As many of you know I've been blocked six times, and those blocks included being tagged as a pornographer because I dared to post on my FB group, Patriots United Against Obama Propaganda (https://www.facebook.com/groups/PatriotsUnitedAgainstObamaPropaganda/?fref=ts), the award winning photo (which had been all over the news and Internet) of our dead, beaten, and tortured soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by the muslim terrorists who did it, and for posting the photo of the two beheaded little Christian girls who dared to go to school, who were murdered and desecrated by muslim terrorists...notice the common denominator here. In fact, I just came off my last 30-day banning about two weeks ago, a banning which was NOT for anything I did or posted but was for guilt by association.

And NOT one to take things lying down, I decided to fight back against the FB gods..

I was lucky in that reporter and friend extraordinaire Joe Newby of The Examiner (http://www.examiner.com/article/is-facebook-actively-censoring-conservative-bloggers) picked up on what was happening to conservative bloggers, especially what happened to me this last time (http://www.examiner.com/article/facebook-bans-conservative-blogger-for-link-she-did-not-post), and ran four stories on Facebook censorship in The Examiner. 

And friend Craig Andresen, of The National Patriot, also ran a full coverage story about me and my Facebook battle (http://www.thenationalpatriot.com/). And from both these friends others picked up the story...bloggers and Internet newspapers from all across the country, and finally The Blaze itself ran a story about me and Facebook censorship (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/27/conservatives-continue-to-accuse-facebook-of-unfairly-blocking-them-three-new-cases-reported/.)

And yet according to FB NOTHING of the censorship sort happened...which is pure bull...just ask Chicks on the Right (https://www.facebook.com/ChicksOnTheRight?fref=ts) about their FB battle.

And so we bloggers and reporters trudged on getting warnings for posts the FB gods didn't like...for posts they deemed NOT politically correct...for posts they claimed leaned too far to the right...and most importantly for posts critical of this miserable president, his miserable lying corrupt administration, and his miserable muslim brethren...the jihadists wrecking havoc on the civilized world.

.

After hearing from a FB friend and blog follower about my blog being tagged by FB as spam and unsafe, I posted this for all to see:

Last night a liberal Obama lover must have reported me and my blog for being against the 'anointed one.' Now the fb gods have deemed my blog as maybe NOT safe or spam. My blog is completely safe...I even have added security placed on it. When you go there please mark me as 'NOT spam." And to make matters worse now everything I post I have to type a code. These you-know-whats are trying to shut we conservatives down as the same thing is happening to a conservative reporter friend of mine and who knows how many others. This nonsense has got to stop!

And then yesterday morning, unbeknown to me on Tuesday night, The Blaze, FOX News, Breitbart, The Examiner, Allen West Republic, and others had also been tagged as spam. Oh what great company I'm in...I'm honored...NO sarcasm in those words whatsoever.

Now add into the mix the warnings we conservatives get every two or three posts, the 'captcha' hoops we have to jump through with each and every post, and you have some very pissed off bloggers, reporters, and posters. And when I spoke to Joe about this, he explained that FB claims that some links, including shortened links, will trigger the 'captcha' code.

Yeah, and pigs fly as NONE of us use shortened links.

And so it seems FB's story is that a 'misconfigured spam classifier' was labeling some sites 'suspicious.'

Hmmmm...you've got to wonder how the 'classifier' got misconfigured for just conservatives only now don't we.

And then by late afternoon The Blaze cleared, FOX News cleared, Allen West Republic and all the others cleared too, but my little blog remained with the spam warning on it.

Again, Joe came to my rescue and found out FB said it's because The Patriot Factor is on Blogspot, which they view as a massive spam site. So he asked them if it's possible to differentiate my sub-domain...but the truth is FB doesn't control Blogspot nor what's posted on it, and narcissists they are they don't like what they can't control, and they never expected Joe to call them to task on it...something of which I cannot thank him enough for.

Oh...and by the way, NO other Blogspot blogs weren't affected...only mine...selective enforcement I would say.  And when you think about it how dare FB attach anything to independently owned blogs and sites that have NO connection to them whatsoever.

Eventually, after a back and forth conversation, my blog was also cleared (all had to be cleared from FB's end), and so I'm back to doing what I do...calling this miserable administration to task and spreading the truth about those out to kill us...you know...the brethren.

FB will NOT stop me for this country means too much to me to 'cease and desist' which is what FB wishes. However, as revenge, FB has now banned Joe from posting anything...And his response, "Consider this: Suspects in a criminal trial have more rights than average users on Facebook. They get representation, due process, the chance to face their accusers and see the evidence against them. They also get a chance to argue their case before a jury and they are assumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Average Facebook users get none of that."

NO they do NOT as I know very well, and so our battle continues for we are all in this together... or we better be unless we want our conservative voices silenced...and if they're silenced the battle will be truly lost.

http://thepatriotfactor.blogspot.com/2013/04/op-ed-conservatives-v.html

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