sputr

I don’t use Facebook Messenger much, but I did recently to reconnect with a friend from my teenage years.

Today I woke up to the following message: “You can’t send messages for 3 days. Something you sent in a chat went against our Community Standards.” This was followed by a button linking to those standards. And yes, all my chats are locked.

So I’ve been put in “time out.” An American corporation has decided I’m not allowed to speak to my friend for 3 days (our only way to communicate—a mistake in hindsight).

And before you ask: what did I say? Most of the conversation was entirely banal. But at one point I was asked about the most memorable things from my time in politics. Among other things, I mentioned a quiet rumor about a ch#ild pros#####on ring (see, I’m self-censoring! I’m a good and obedient citizen!) in a bar frequented by the local political elite. That was last night. And no, my friend did not report me.

People believe private chats to be, well, private. They also believe that Facebook Messenger is encrypted. Neither is true.

Except that when I tell people about this, the most common response is not surprise or anger, but a kind of weary acceptance - as if the problem isn’t the censorship, but my failure to follow the rules.

I was part of the politically active youth a decade ago, fighting for free speech, net neutrality, against censorship, and against corporate power taking over and corrupting what we saw as a beautiful force for good: the internet. It seems we failed. The well-paid IT jobs turned out to be too sweet to pass up.

I guess we still have Signal. For now.