I don’t watch a lot of cable TV, but while traveling and taking in Gordon Ramsay’s “Nightmare Kitchen,” I was struck by the tonal difference between Ramsay brutally bringing restaurant owners to tears and a Facebook ad quietly assuring us their advanced algorithms and their community standards team had removed 17 million dangerous posts.
On the way to achieving culinary excellence, Ramsay doesn’t spare us blistering rebuke, but Facebook solemnly assures us we can live in a world where we will be untroubled by conflicting opinions. The “wounds of a friend,” according to the Bible are “faithful,” but Facebook promises us we can avoid them. All the guiding wisdom of parents, drill sergeants, pastors and contrarian neighbors will be eliminated in the name of “community standards.”
Question: if Facebook, claiming the editorial privileges of a private company, reserves the right to censor and deplatform, why bother branding their rules “community standards?” They may own their own publishing entity, but who appointed them judges for the “community?”
I listened to their ad and snorted, assuming for a moment, that most of America was dismissing this insanity right alongside me, but then I concluded, a little miserably, that the ad men at Facebook wouldn’t make this kind of pitch if there weren’t a market for it.
Lots of your neighbors, lots of your kids, lots of your co-workers are little more than cult members. They actually like the idea of dear leader knowing what’s best for them.
They don’t like processing contrarian information about the jab, or bad-speak about the abortion-loving Ukranian regime, or taking responsibility for Sniffer-Joe’s criminal son. They like to keep the herd moving in a nice, orderly direction — even if it’s right over the cliff.
Start yelling, folks. These kids are asleep.
