Might seem like a rather mundane and harmless error to some of us, but it’s an example of how Facebook and probably other corporate entities are operating these days. The idea of using computers and algorithms to arbitrate and judge community standards rather than humans is straight out of Orwell’s 1984.
Orwellian Developments
By way of explanation, a post of the above photo was sent by me to a Facebook site for Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, actually a beautiful and historic place. A human would instantly see than this is not a pornographic image (my guess as to the reason it was removed) and the message from Facebook as to why it was removed actually apologizes for not having a human available to decide the matter, nor do they cite what standards were broken. Blaming Cov19 for the shortage of live staff. This of course has happened to me before the days of Cov19. And Facebook is perhaps the largest of any such entity on the planet and a virtual monopoly, worth nearly a trillion dollars to its chief owner.
It’s a prime example of how the corporate world has taken over information and miss-used the power of computers. Even the former national pastime of Baseball has been taken over by statistics and algorithms (they call it analytics). There are strong arguments before Congress to do something about Zuckerberg’s Facebook, and the threat of information and social network monopoly it entails.
The First Amendment becomes worthless when corporate funded machines take over access and distribution of information and social networks of mass communication. Up to this point, the corporate world have been accomplishing this without much opposition, replacing people whenever possible. It’s time we start paying greater attention to this, which is as great a threat to democracy as was the January 6th coup attempt.