Social Media Censorship

Today I tried to log into my Twitter account and I received a message that I had been reported.  I was told that I wouldn’t have access to my account for twelve hours.  In order to begin the countdown I needed to provide Twitter with my phone number.

This is the damning tweet that I made in reference to a story about the Covington High School students.  In order to clarify I want to say that I think that those boys exhibited disrespectful and thuggish behavior.  I’m appalled at how they acted in our nation’s capital and the way they treated a man three times their age.  I still believe that the ring leader of the incident would have been deserving of a punch to the chest.

I would never give Twitter my phone number due to privacy concerns.  I tried to give them the land line number at my job but they wouldn’t accept that.  There is no way I’m going to give Twitter and the FBI or whomever the opportunity to track my moves through my cell phone.  So I guess I’ll never use my account again.

I really enjoyed Twitter.  I got a kick out of being a part of mass viewing parties of sporting events and reality TV show broadcasts.  A lot of Twitter users are quite clever and I enjoy the way they create their own entertainment.

There are Twitter users that I wouldn’t call friends but I have enjoyed my interactions that I’ve had with them over time.  I feel like I’ve gotten to know a few people a bit.  At times I’ve thought of deactivating my account in order to avoid some of the stupidity and nastiness but I decided that the good outweighed the bad.

I’ve been banned from Facebook as well.  I made a remark that some snowflake didn’t like on a video that was posted.  It involved a White man with a gun bullying a minority.  I don’t exactly remember what happened in the video.  I must have said something about the man needing his a$$ beat or something.  I don’t recall.

When I got into trouble with Facebook they locked my account and asked me to send them a picture of a government ID.  Nope.  There was no way I was doing that.  Facebook is clearly in cahoots with law enforcement and I don’t need the FBI thinking I was a part of some sort of pro African American insurgency.  Honestly I wish I was but I’m just another insignificant person, opinionated person on social media.

It seems to me that large social media platforms are more likely to censor African Americans than they are Whites.  I remember a time when there was a shooting on or near a college campus in northern Florida at a historically Black college.  Lives were lost.  I was looking at the schools Facebook post about the incident.  An anonymous racist account was on the page heckling the incident.  I reported the remarks to Facebook and they quickly responded that they wouldn’t do anything about the racist and mean spirited posts.

My remarks were not racist because I was giving my opinion about an individual.  Both of the individuals in the social media conversations that I mentioned were being arrogant bullies.  I can’t stand arrogance or bullies.  I also enjoy seeing people get what they deserve.  I don’t think I said anything wrong and I’m not sorry.

Honestly my account is not bad.  I avoided using profanity and I didn’t say anything vulgar.  I know I may have said things that are objectionable but I didn’t demean anything while saying it.  It’s a surprise that my account would get blocked meanwhile there are accounts showing porn, people committing suicide and the aftermath of bloody car accidents that are functioning.

With that being said I can’t think of a time other than the person that was heckling the Black college after a mass shooting that I’ve ever reported an individual.  Usually I just block objectionable accounts and move along.  It hasn’t occurred to me many times to prevent someone else from broadcasting or viewing what they choose.

But I learned long ago that the world does not really like to hear the opinions of Black women unless you are a clown of some sort.  I’ve also noticed that the fastest way for a Black person to gain a social media audience is to market themselves as pro Black and go on to degrade other Black people or glorify Whites.  I’m not interested in making that kind of presentation.

Perhaps I’ll be better off without Twitter.  I got a kick out of it but it also drove me nuts at times.  And being an avid social media user is kind of like being schizophrenic.  There are a lot of voices in your head.  Well, at least I still have WordPress.  For now.  And maybe now I’ll have time to get through the stack of books on my nightstand.