That the meme “Facebook Jail” has become so popular, especially among conservatives, who make up at least 90% of its inmate population, is a sad commentary on the times we live in. Many who rely on this social media leviathan for exposure and, concomitantly, a living are finding themselves blocked, banned, or censored. Some users have even had their accounts disabled for no good reason and without explanation or appeal.
Now a new site has emerged that seeks to swap the roles of jailer and jailed. Its name, Facecrook Jail, is a riff on the meme, and it not only documents instances of bias, censorship, and abuse by Facebook, but also lets users share their own experiences and grievances with the social media site.
On Sunday, Rusty James, the owner of the site, told Conservative Firing Line the idea for the site came in May 2018 after his two favorite bloggers were suspended by Facebook in the same period of time.
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James said he trusted their work, adding that they often broke stories larger outlets wouldn’t touch.
“It really hit home for me, seeing both of them silenced,” James said. “I started asking questions — just how many sites are being blocked?”
James said he found what looks like a pattern of selective enforcement by Facebook. It seemed to him that the site was targeting anything not considered “politically correct.”
“The other thing that struck me was the sheer number of individuals that have had problems on their personal pages,” James added. “A lot of people seem to get a good laugh out of it but they don’t think about the full impact.”
Sadly, many people fail to appreciate just how much impact social media censorship has on the electorate. By censoring one point of view, for example, Silicon Valley tech giants can actually impact the outcome of elections.
Activist Chris Sevier explained:
Those individual websites are engaging in contracts with users in the states and can be regulated for bad faith, unfair dealing, and fraudulent inducement. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 would safeguard Internet providers and search engines from this act but not interactive individual websites with more than 75,000,000 people who market themselves as being open to the public and open to the sharing of ideas only to prove otherwise.
In my opinion, Facebook has perpetrated a form of fraudulent inducement, tortious interference of business relations, breach of the duty of care, unjust enrichment, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress by at first allowing conservatives and Christians to build a platform where they were supposedly free to express themselves only to then turn around and arbitrarily find some speech permissible and other speech impermissible.
As a result, Sevier has drafted a piece of legislation called the “Anti-Social Media Censorship Act of 2019,” which is being considered by multiple state legislators.
In addition to news and information about Facebook censorship — some of which is provided by yours truly — those who have been targeted by the social media site are encouraged to tell their stories.
As we reported previously, Rep. Jerrod Nadler (D-N.Y.) claimed that social media censorship doesn’t exist and is nothing more than a conspiracy theory. Those who have been targeted by sites like Facebook, however, know better. And now they have an outlet to tell their stories.
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