Issues Of National Importance

[Martin Hash]

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I hit 500 Page Likes today on one of my Facebook personas, “Mr. Wysdom,” and that was quite an accomplishment considering how much I had to go through just to post a sentence every few days. It seems Facebook thinks that I could negatively influence the people who follow me contrary to the national interest, whatever that it? Really, I told them, my posts are the equivalent of cat videos for old white guys; I'm not a Russian bot or Chinese troll. But Facebook was not satisfied with my reassurances; they insisted, since I was posting on “issues of national importance,” that I prove my identify. Okay, I thought, seems a wee bit paranoiac, but I can do whatever it is they want to prove I'm an upstanding, loyal, patriotic American citizen, so that my one-line opinions won't be rejected. Little did I know what that entailed...

Becoming a “verified identity” is a 3-step process: first a photograph of my passport, and not just a scan; it has to be hi-res. I know because I tried three times before my passport was accepted. I ask you, how many people even have passports? Second, I had to provide my address so that Facebook could send me a verification number in the snail mail with a code on it which I then had to enter into their verification page to prove I lived where I claimed I lived. This code is only good for a few days, and even after I entered it, was only good for a month; turns out, I have to go through this every month?!

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Third, I had to provide a cell phone number that was unique to the page, which means I can't use it for my other pages. I literally have to have another cell phone to have a second “verified” page; luckily one is enough. Obviously, the whole process is intended to squelch Freedom of Speech, not ensure its veracity: 99% of the people don't want to go through the hassle of verification which takes over a week, so Facebook doesn't have to do anything, people just evaporate on their own, but I did go through the trouble so that I could post on "issues of national importance."

But even after all the rigmarole; even after I'd successfully become verified to post on issues of national importance, I still get my posts rejected. I had two rejections in the past couple of days! In fact, one of the rejections was following a solicitation by Facebook to Boost the page, which I did, which they then rejected. The other was more bizarre: I Boosted then got the "you must have your identity verified to post about issues of national importance" warning, and I responded by saying I was already verified and provided my secret code. In return I received a message saying Facebook would review my case and respond in 24 hours; right at 24 hours I got the exact same rejection message I had the first time. I'm still going but I get post denials every couple weeks, and yesterday I got a Strike on YouTube. Free Speech, even a sentence at a time, has become subversive on Social Media.

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[Pop]

Your posts obviously failed to meet Facebook's high standards. They must contain violent hate Trump rants, you must be a card carrying Socialist Democrat and you MUST donate large amounts of money to the radical left.

[DBTrek]

You know someone at FB headquarters is swearing up a storm every time you jump through one of their arbitrary hoops.

"Fuck! This crank sent his passport in hi-res now! Dammit. Well, what else do we have? Just block some of his shit 'on accident' and see if he gets the hint".

[SuburbanFarmer]

Sounds more like a Nigerian scammer than a multi-billion dollar media company.