Click to enlarge and to be enraged.
Del Shores, an accomplished gay filmmaker, has been banned from posting anything on Facebook for 30 days for posting something that the social-media giant felt went against its standards: A celebratory message about gay marriage.
Unreal.
Facebook has a serious flaw in its system when something like this can happen. The text of Shores's message was as follows (or click the above image to enlarge):
“AN EMOTIONAL MOMENT FOR ME TODAY!
“I'm not sure that all of you know that I wrote for and was one of the producers of Queer as Folk for the last three seasons. Today, a fan pointed out that Debbie can now marry Carl! Why? Because in one episode of QAF - when Carl asked Debbie to marry him, she said she would not until gay marriage was legal in Pennsylvania. How amazing! I wrote the writers: 'Debbie and Carl can get married!' -- and my good friend Michael MacLennan wrote me this: 'And what a heady time. In those Dark Days of Bush (and not the positive and life-affirming variety) we'd have never imagined that less than ten years later, such progress as this would be happening.' I teared up. It's an amazing time in history! Love you all!”
His response to Facebook after 24 hours with no satisfactory answer from the powers that be follows after the jump...
From Del Shores, via a Facebook fan club account:
“Dear Facebook:
“Please tell me what in my post that you removed, then suspended me from posting for thirty days, does not 'follow Facebook Community Standards'.
“First and foremost, I LOVE FACEBOOK. It is an amazing way to connect to my fans. I buy ads for my shows daily and have a very active page. Thank you Facebook for my page. I mean that sincerely. I love connecting with friends and fans. Even while suspended, my ads are still running, and I am gladly paying for them.
“In that, there is a flaw in your system. The particular offending post was attacked by a few religious bigots, one who railed on the gay community by quoting scripture after scripture. Many fans commented back, and I ultimately banned and blocked him, deleting his hateful comments in the name of the Lord. But apparently not before he and his trolls reported my page.
“It seems to me, since this is the third time this has happened to me (and all 'offending' posts or pictures were not offensive in any way AND you never would respond to my complaints or reverse the suspensions) that whomever is in charge of suspending does not look at the 'offending' posts or pictures. They simply trust those reporting.
“I cannot believe that Facebook is homophobic. Otherwise, many of us would be gone long ago. Although with the recent press of you suspending an Italian woman for posting a pro-gay rights picture of two women kissing citing 'she had violated FB rules on “nudity and pornography”, along with you removing my post -- you are getting that reputation. (http://metro.co.uk/2014/05/20/facebook-criticised-for-removing-lesbian-kiss-posted-to-mark-anti-homophobia-day-4733954/)
“Yes, I can still post via my administrators. BUT, it is a hassle. And this suspension is simply wrong!
“Please do the right thing!
“Del Shores”
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