Content, Context and Censorship
Even when I’m not asking for it, I am reminded that the world is going nuts and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. My recent article on Medium, “The Economy of Pain” is a brilliant case study of what happens when the triggers of moral standards on social media heat up so much they break down like an overenthusiastic threadmill and can’t recognize any nuances betweeen black and white any more. In short, it’s an article about the absurds related to commemorative culture and the contemporary approach to it. To my surprise, Facebook blocked the link, accusing me of things that couldn’t be further from the truth. But you be the judge:
It referenced a military museum that’s currently being built on the site of the Heliodrom camp in Mostar. It’s devoted to the military that detained Bosnian Muslims on the premises. Unlike what you’d expect, the museum is actually celebrating achievements of the army in question, instead of commemorating their victims.
The camp was operative between 1992 and 1994, and the numbers of the prisoners went from 6000 down to 500 in June 1993. In the end, with the signing of the Washington Agreement, Heliodrom was finally closed. In 2009, the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina sentenced Marko Radić, Dragan Šunjić, Damir Brekalo and Mirko Vračević to 25, 21, 20 and 14 years for crimes against humanity( source: Wikipedia).
My article also mentioned reactions of former prisoners, like a friend of mine who afterwards used his experience as a source for black humor when he became a comedian, which I found curageous and healing simultaneously. The article dwelves on the problem of how we choose to remember the tragedies that some people go through, like Sophie Scholl. Also, I questioned turning the siege of Sarajevo into a tourist attraction by reducing the city’s identity to a historical trauma when it can be equally associated with things that put a smile instead of tears on your face.
I found a report by the American journalist Jenn Director Knudsen who was shocked by the fact that at the bookshop in Dachau she found highly inappropriate products for the context, to say the least. Her thoughts on the issue weren’t so different from mine though they obviously weren’t related to the same thing. Still, the critical core was something both examples have in common. The difference is that you still have access to hers, but who knows what would have happened if she put it on Facebook. Instead of paraphrasing, it’s best to quote her directly:
How could one purchase Judaica at a concentration camp? Would its use be a triumph, signaling that on acres dedicated to the extermination of the Jews and other peoples, one can buy and enjoy a physical representation of Judaism? The sale of such items seemed incongruous, even thoughtless. This was not a synagogue gift shop, this was a former death camp. Even more incongruous were greeting cards. At Dachau, where nearly 42,000 prisoners were murdered, one could purchase a birthday card.
https://forward.com/culture/336777/judaica-for-sale-at-the-dachau-gift-shop/
This is where the problem of context comes in, because of which my article was taken down from my Facebook profile. After I complained, I got a review and an apology which retracted the move. To my surprise, they did it again with the same explanation: breaching of their community standards regarding hate speech, negative stereotypes and similar accusations. However, they give you a pass if it’s meant to criticize someone else’s behavior, which was clearly my intention. In the end I gave up and let them take the link down. It seems two faults like these get your profile closed off. And that’s the last thing I need. It’s not worth it, really.
On the other hand, I put it on my Twitter account and it’s still there. Quite puzzling since they had previously put a warning on one of my old links, an article criticizing the meddling of political activism into music and events like the Glastonbury festival. They might have got it wrong because there was a picture of Greta Thunberg on it.
You’ll probably get the impression that I’m some kind of a notorious online dissident but I just find it hard to digest an ever-increasing daily intake of BS. Caffeine doesn’t agree with my digestion and neither do Facebook and my Medium account with each other. But who cares? I spend more time on the latter than my socials these days anyway.
The power players of social media have turned into ultimate authorities on political correctness and imposed a code of behavior bordering on censorship they use as they please if it fits the official narrative. And I get it. It’s a bit like signing a contract with a publisher, since Facebook is, after all, a private business and if you don’t like it, you take your business elsewhere.
Given the situation where so much of what we create can be misinterpreted and censored, that “elsewhere” is getting more and more abstract and that’s frightening. Maybe in the end we’ll go back to paper. It’s impossible to imagine how influencers would survive this attack of existential anxiety. Without a platform, you can’t sell any more duckface lipsticks. In that case they’d have to pick up something heavier than a smartphone to earn a living. Just imagine that. Nah, I can’t either.
I don’t want to turn into a conspiracy theorist but they’re making a pretty convincing case and the next step might be putting that dreaded MAGA hat on my head just to spite those oversensitive crybabies. With a lifelong commitment to open-minded liberalism, it’s difficult to stay loyal because it seems to be heralded by paranoid gatekeepers that could give the police at the coronation in London a run for their money. We have lost our moral compass when our warning triggers started hyperventilating at the sight of anything that might make us question our beliefs.
If a community has certain standards it means there’s been a concensus on it and they are competent to recognize intended disrespect or breaching. Unfortunately, my experience shows that they’re not completely in check with what that exactly means, or how they are supposed to react. If they were, I wouldn’t get two blocks and one apology because it makes no sense. People put their whole lives on Facebook and by doing so, they unknowingly risk allowing aparatchicks in Silicon Valley to manipulate, censor or steal their personal data.
Who knows what needs to happen for you to see it’s a bad idea to put photos of your babies online. Just keep your fingers crossed you won’t find out. Maybe it’s time to watch Sandra Bullock’s movie The Net again. It’s not exactly George Orwell but its’ a warning that we shouldn’t take for granted.
I already referenced it in an old article before, but after my little misunderstanding with Facebook it needs to be reiterated. Be careful what you put out there. With a single selfie on Instagram, you’re opening thousands of windows into your private world that many have access to. It makes covering everything but your eyes not such a bad idea after all.
I won’t be sharing this on my Facebook, I’ve had enough. For now at least. So maybe you can do me a favor and share it on your own media. With the rise of Chatbots soon you’ll have no idea who you’re talking to. Before you know it, we’ll be talking to dead people in an AI-generated simulacrum of eternal life.
In Star Trek, in the episode Ashes to Ashes, we meet the alien tribe Kobali where people are reincarnated through the replication of their DNA into a new life. They try to go back to their old, mortal selves, but they end up hovering somewhere in between. We live in a similar situation. The face in the mirror showing who we are, and the filtered selfie with an image of who we want to be. Yet, your inner Sisyphus keeps fighting a losing battle with the fact that only the mirror is telling you the truth.
