Monday, September 5, 2011

Facebook and the LGBT Community...

I've been reading a lot about what's been going on over at Facebook with the LGBT community. Gay people, including gay authors, are allegedly being kicked off facebook for no apparent reason and they are not being given any explanations from anyone at facebook. Some people are upset with facebook staffers, and are calling for Mr. Zuckerberg to do something about it. The people who are upset aren't joking around either. These people are extremely frustrated and I have a feeling they're going to continue to fight what's been happening.

I've had my own interesting situations with facebook. And none of this is alleged: it happened. I was once knocked off for no apparent reason. My account was suspended without an explanation. To this day, I still do not know why it happened and a reason was never given to me. I do not post anything obscene on facebook or on any other social network. This blog is proof of that. I've never posted anything with nudity or made a facebook status update that would be considered offensive. In fact, I never post anything political because I don't want to read about politics on facebook. And I've also been known to quietly unfriend people for posting too many political updates, especially when someone is bashing a political figure...left or right.

I use facebook, I hope, for what it was intended to be: a social network to interact with people from all over the world. I catch up with friends, we talk about books and publishing, and I've even made a few new friends thanks to facebook. And if I don't like something I see on facebook I either hide all posts from that user or I just unfriend them quietly. With facebook, it really is that easy. This is the wonderful thing about facebook. You don't have to read anything posted by anyone you don't like. If you don't like gays, you don't have to be friends with them. All you have to do is click "unfriend."

But there's been a kerfuffle in recent months and the gay community is allegedly getting tired of it. Those who don't like gay content of any kind are reporting gay people on facebook and facebook is allegedly suspending thier accounts for no given reason. I don't know how true this is, but it's what I've been reading. Evidently, all you have to do is "report" someone to facebook and their account can be suspended? But I've never reported anyone, so I don't know how this works. But if I were Mr. Zuckerberg, I'd be watching closely to see exactly what's been happening. Facebook is a wonderful tool, but there are a lot of people misusing this tool and they come from a mindset of hate and bigotry. We hear about how facebook is trying to improve our lives and our social media experience all the time when it comes to privacy. I'd like to see facebook set a few new standards when it comes to how and why they suspend facebook accounts.

At the very least, give a solid reason as to why an account is being suspended. I've started to see new LGBT social networks popping up in different places. And what a shame it would be if every single gay person in the world...because facebook is global...suspended their account and went somewhere else because of these alleged accusations.


mary gresham said...

I agree Ryan. I have a few friends, not naming anyone, and even though I really like these people, they do tend to get on my nerves posting all the politcal stuff. Sometimes over and over and it just gets old.
I've seen some of the posts you are talking about with authors pictures and sometimes their whole pages disappear. We have a mutual friend who is not an author that had photos removed, because they offended someone, doesn't make much sense to me.
I use facebook for the same reason you do, it has helped me
re-connect with high school friends as well as making new friends, including you.

Erica Pike said...

Yeah, someone deliberately befriended me to get into my photo album and report photos. Those photos were only visible to friends and they weren't even obscene. Well, I don't think they are because they're artistic photos of the male body (with no private parts shown), professionally photographed by Dan Skinner. I was so angry and wanted to suspend my account, but I got over my anger...for now. Seriously, people need to get a life if all they're doing is attacking the gay and gay-friendly community. Isn't it against the law?

ryan field said...

I've heard stories like this. I never post anything on FB but book covers for this reason.