Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

In after Baud. Damn.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

You are here: Home / Hey Facebook, Your Standards Seem Arbitrary, Capricious, and Stupid

Hey Facebook, Your Standards Seem Arbitrary, Capricious, and Stupid

by | 238 Comments

This post is in: ,

My facebook account is closed to the public, meaning that only people I know personally, who follow me and whom I follow, can see what I post. So basically, the only people who can see what I say and post have signed up for this shit and know full well the hot mess they are dealing with. Despite that, I am somehow run afoul of facebook’s community standards:

You know what passes facebook’s community standards? This:

That’s right- Alex Jones, despite being very publicly banned from facebook, is back in full force:

Alex Jones, the rabidly anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theorist who hosts the web-show InfoWars was banned from Facebook, YouTube, iTunes, Twitter and Vimeo last year. But he has apparently snuck back onto Facebook, and so far he’s getting away with it.

The Daily Dot reports that Jones’ InfoWars is now available on Facebook via three pages called NewsWars, InfoWars Live 24/7 and Prison Planet.TV. All of them run anti-LGBTQ content which conflates LGBTQ rights with pedophilia.

Jones has admitted that his company operates NewsWars and its related website, NewsWars.com, but he has denied personally running any of the Facebook pages.

Many of the NewsWars.com posts contain InfoWars videos, helping Facebook users connect with Jones and his anti-LGBTQ and Islamophobic views despite formally being banned on the world’s largest social network.

Fuck you Zuckerberg, you piece of shit nazi enabler. And I can say that here, because as you all know, we have no god damned standards.

Reader Interactions

238Comments

  2. 2.

    Quinerly

    I have said worse at least once a week for 9 years on FB. Was it because you said “white trash?” I really don’t understand. I think someone who follows you had to report your page for some odd reason.

  4. 4.

    TaMara (HFG)

    Hey, you’re speaking my language. My blog got banned from Facebook for a month because I dared show Bixby’s naughty bits. My cousin, who is a marketing/web design guy, so deals with the capriciousness of FB daily, had to intervene. I am now able to post my racy recipes and pet pics.

  5. 5.

    may

    This happens to us women often in private accounts for writing things like “men are trash” or anything considered to be unkind to white men. But reporting actual rape threats gets a big old nothing response.

  6. 6.

    geg6

    Ridiculous. But pretty sure it’s because you said “white trash.” Plus, someone may have reported it. Cull your “friends” of whiny snowflakes.

  9. 9.

    A Ghost To Most

    I’m glad to see you are where I was in 2005. Counting on greedy people to do right is a suckers bet.

  11. 11.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    are there enough facebook-skeptics on facebook to make a one week boycott something that would cause fear-like sensations in the Zuckerbot?

  13. 13.

    trollhattan

    @TaMara (HFG):

    My blog got banned from Facebook for a month because I dared show Bixby’s naughty bits.

    Uh, wut? Did a smaller, less-bestowed dog complain?

  15. 15.

    Keith P.

    @Elizabelle: The easier path is to just watch as Facebook eventually becomes a punchline, ala Myspace. If so many sites didn’t use Facebook as an identity service, I wouldn’t even have an account.

  16. 16.

    hells littlest angel

    FaceBook: an online retirement home common room. Complaining the housekeepers are stealing from you — old folks, what can you do? Complaining about management — hate speech.

  18. 18.

    Brickley Paiste

    Anyone who uses facebook supports the elimination of privacy, facilitating foreign interference in our elections, and just generally making the world dumber.

  21. 21.

    Kay

    Josh Campbell
    ‏

    @joshscampbell
    Follow Follow @joshscampbell
    More
    NEW: Mueller’s work does not appear finished. The Special Counsel tells judge it is not yet time to sentence former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates, as he “continues to cooperate with respect to several ongoing investigations…” Request update in 2 months.

    Several.

  23. 23.

    Keith P.

    @hells littlest angel: I can’t say it’s worse, but Nextdoor is similar in the bitchin’ n’ moanin’. As a lost pet finder, ND is great. Ditto for tracking flooding in the neighborhood (Houston), but what kills it for me is the large number of people who are using ND to tattle on their neighbors. And not in the “I think there’s a meth lab next door”, but in the “Here is a picture of the car I encountered that didn’t come to a complete stop at the stop sign” or “To my neighbor whose dog will not stop barking…”

  24. 24.

    J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford

    How much money do you think could be raised if there was a Pay-Per-Event of someone beating the shit out of Zuckerberg?

  25. 25.

    chloe

    Man, for someone who’s so self-conscious about his little hands, you’d think Orange Julius Caesar would have his jacket sleeves tailored so his stubby little digits weren’t poking out the ends like a kindergartner wearing dad’s shirt as an art smock…

  26. 26.

    Stuart Frasier

    Why is anyone still on Facebook? They are bad actors and are one of the reasons we are in our current state.

  27. 27.

    rikyrah

    Robert Mueller’s office, in a new court filing, says that it wants more time with ex-Manafort associate Rick Gates as he “continues to cooperate with respect to several ongoing investigations.” pic.twitter.com/0ex3p4f6XI

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 15, 2019

  31. 31.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: @rikyrah:
    Is anyone surprised? What surprises me is that people think Mueller is where they are in knowledge when he is probably half a year ahead of what we learn from the press. Six months is a lot of investigative time. If we know what we do about collusion, imagine what the Mueller team knows.

  33. 33.

    Yutsano

    @rikyrah: In a sane time, that would be enough to spike his nomination.

    In a sane time.

    But the Republicans are just going to let him sail through. I see it happening already.

    Protip Mr Barr: you’re going to be required to be a Constitutional scholar as Attorney General. Hell even the Elf answered questions like this better and we knew his hearing was cursory.

  37. 37.

    Brickley Paiste

    @smintheus:

    Shhhh… don’t upset Balloon Juice’s master of counter-counter-counterespionage @A Ghost To Most …. his/her working theory is that Russia actually hates facebook, that’s why they us it.

  38. 38.

    Barbara

    Other than staying in distant and shallow contact with people I don’t really talk to on a regular basis, as well as following activities of groups I participate in, like Indivisible, I don’t see the point of Facebook. Whenever a group or publication or blog that I used to participate in goes full Facebook on me, I stop participating. I did this before I had anything against Facebook, it just seems like it’s set up for shallow thoughts, and poorly formatted for anything else, be it keeping me informed or having anything that seems like a real discussion.

  40. 40.

    Jeffro

    @Quinerly: Eh, just use the filters and settings to narrow it down to whatever you want to see. Our HOA uses it and it’s been pretty easy to make sure I don’t see anything but HOA business/questions.

    Btw in case anyone’s interested, this Barr guy is in no way to be trusted not to shut down/smother the Special Counsel’s many investigations. There is no reason other than trumpov-protection for a 68-year-old RWNJ to come out of the woodwork and jump into this mess. I’m not sure why any Democrat would give him the time of day or his/her vote.

  41. 41.

    Gex

    Facebook’s algorithms are pretty insistent on policing critiques of whiteness and men.

    Too many black people I know have gotten bans for discussing racist hate messages received from white people.

    Too many trans people I know have gotten bans for discussing male toxicity. Too many women as well.

    Their guidelines LITERALLY list “white men” as a protected group in their moderation training, but not “black kids” so…

    I mean, the man went out of his way to say that Holocaust denialism is no big deal. They went out of their way to further anti-Semitic lies about Soros.

    They picked a side .

  42. 42.

    Barbara

    @Keith P.: My neighborhood group has a yahoo group chat board, and a few years ago, most neighbors migrated to NextDoor, and I just couldn’t use ND, at all. The volume is overwhelming and almost always pointless, even in the digest version. A few of us still use the old format, and however few there are, it still seems more useful to me.

  43. 43.

    lgerard

    From the Guardian story on Christie’s book

    Trump returned to the theme of girth during the 2016 presidential campaign, exhorting Christie to wear a longer tie as it would make him look thinner.

    trump secrets revealed!!

  44. 44.

    schrodingers_cat

    I read Ted Koppel piece in Washington Post against my better judgment. It was awful
    Apparently “we” are addicted to T. Speak for yourself and your fellow media minions, you self important piece of shit.

  45. 45.

    trollhattan

    @rikyrah:
    Seriously? “They’re not sending their best.” Interesting detail that he sent his trial balloon job application quals to the Federalist Society. When I’m in charge, Federalist is going on my enemy of the state list alongside the NRA–they do just as much damage to our country.

  46. 46.

    eric

    Re: Facebook. As someone that follows fusion and guitar, facebook is an invaluable resource. I get to see other players and concert footage of bands that I love and who have no other public venue. The Allan Holdsworth page, for instance, is fantastic, as is “Jazz Rock Fusion.”

  47. 47.

    West of the Cascades

    @rikyrah:

    ‘I can’t tell you what the emoluments clause means’: Trump’s AG nominee admits he doesn’t understand the Constitution https://t.co/cWZ5FfI0w3

    Not a totally crazy answer – I don’t think there’s ever been a judicial opinion interpreting it, and unless you are heavily into original meaning/intent/squabbles at the Constitutional Convention, most lawyers/judges/scholars would probably give the same answer.

  49. 49.

    MattF

    I just don’t see how the poisonous Alex Jones is OK now. I guess Facebook management really wants that InfoWars demographic.

  51. 51.

    Mandalay

    we have no god damned standards

    Well we got a new standard the other day, and it’s a good one…

    A California judge has ruled that American cops can’t force people to unlock a mobile phone with their face or finger. The ruling goes further to protect people’s private lives from government searches than any before and is being hailed as a potentially landmark decision.

    Previously, U.S. judges had ruled that police were allowed to force unlock devices like Apple’s iPhone with biometrics, such as fingerprints, faces or irises. That was despite the fact feds weren’t permitted to force a suspect to divulge a passcode.

    I don’t know about the iPhone, but fingerprint login now comes as a standard option with the cheapest iPad.

  54. 54.

    Brickley Paiste

    @eric: Contributing to the subversion of democracy is really a pretty small price to pay in comparison to keeping up with fusion and guitar.

    Sort of like — I hate child labor and destruction of American communities … but Walmart sells shirts for only $6.98.

    You make your choices.

  55. 55.

    catclub

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Apparently “we” are addicted to T. Speak for yourself and your fellow media minions

    well, most of what he was writing was that the WE was his fellow media that depended on the profits from the mutual relationship
    of Trump and media.

  57. 57.

    eric

    @Brickley Paiste: i push my legislators to regulate the industry stronger….that is the democratic way. I protest Facebook’s lax standards. I buy Exxon gas as well. We fight where and how we can. We can even use Facebook to protest Facebook. If you think every product or service you use is free from public harm of some sort you are naive. I am pretty sure the electronic device you are using was not built in America and there is a good chance people with dramatically low wages were involved in its production.

  58. 58.

    schrodingers_cat

    @catclub:

    The dirty little secret about the United States’ relationship with Trump is that we have become addicted to him. His ups, his downs, his laughs, his frowns are (as the lovely song from “My Fair Lady” once put it in another context altogether) “second nature to [us] now, like breathing out and breathing in.”

    He is not talking about just the media.

  59. 59.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: There is a difference between an addiction and a craze. We might be addicted to celebrity culture, which is what gave us Trump, at least in part, but we are not addicted to Trump.

  60. 60.

    Nicole

    THAT “doesn’t follow community standards”? Have they seen the crap a right-winger of my acquaintanceship puts on his page? Oh right, IOKIYAR.

  61. 61.

    dr. luba

    Same exact thing just happened to me. Literally seconds I quoted you verbatim in a comment on FB and was just informed that my speech “doesn’t follow community standards.” Nazis are ok, but “white trash” is a bridge too far?

    As I was given the option of the decision being reviewed, I chose to do that. Will see what happens.

    Interestingly, shortly after, FB recommended to me a double wide mobile home for sale near me. Only $430 per month. I am not making this up.

  62. 62.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Barbara: I am not addicted to him at all. In fact quite the opposite. I go out of my way not to hear him speak or see his face on TV. I had stopped watching TV News for a year after Nov 2016. Even now I will quickly change the channel when they show him.

  63. 63.

    Mandalay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    you self important piece of shit

    Right, and Koppel is one of many.

    All of those old timers have revealed themselves to be empty vessels with no more insight than the ambitious twenty-somethings on the cable news channels. Koppel, Donaldson, Brokaw, Rather….they’re all pompous windbags, with nothing useful to say.

    If they had been born thirty years later the pinnacle of their careers would be reading the weather forecast and the high school football scores on the local news channel in Bumfuck, Iowa.

  64. 64.

    Pogonip

    My local Nextdoor is very good. This is not an HOA neighborhood, maybe that’s the difference. To me, HOA’s always sound like paying lots of money to spend your life in the 5th grade with the mean girls.

  67. 67.

    Nicole

    @dr. luba:

    Interestingly, shortly after, FB recommended to me a double wide mobile home for sale near me. Only $430 per month. I am not making this up.

    That made me laugh. Soooo…. community standards only insofar as it doesn’t interfere with selling a person stuff, I guess?

  68. 68.

    Elizabelle

    @schrodingers_cat: I do wish that networks (and radio) could know how quickly the remote goes “off” or chooses another channel when Trump appears.

    I turn off the volume when he appears. I am not interested in hearing anything out of his mouth other than “Guilty, your honor.”

  70. 70.

    StringOnAStick

    I used NextDoor to report an aggressive bear on a trail very near our home after it nearly mauled my husband (it got close enough that he was hitting it in the face with his rolled up rain jacket after he came around a corner to a bear running full speed at him). Then I found out it had clawed a guy who was jogging with his dog, so I reported it to the local Open Space agency. The next encounter was even worse in terms of aggression, and it was because she had 2 cubs but she was hanging out in a really busy area and obviously sooner or later someone, a kid, a dog or an adult was going to get badly injured so DOW shot them all. I had no idea DOW would do that when I first asked the Open Space agency to please put up an “aggressive bear” sign at the trailheads, I figured they’d move the bear (at the time we thought it was just 1 bear), but they don’t do that now because the bear population is high enough there aren’t places to drop them. So, a group that I suspect was feeding the cubs (because they were cute) went on a NextDoor jihad after me for being the first one to report what was going on; I was afraid for months that someone was going to vandalize our house or worse. I closed my account and hoped no one had our address but that isn’t that hard to find since they had our name. My sin was that I asked the agency to put up an “aggressive bear” sign, I never did anything other than that but I was blamed for the DOW actions.

    Friends in another part of Denver had been having trouble with some ex-con neighbors and had been discussing the situation with other neighbors; they came home from a long trip to rape and death threats from the ex-cons posted on NextDoor. It took a bunch of complaints on their part to get the rape and death threats taken down. These two stories are why NextDoor can go DIAF as far as I’m concerned. If you want to get to know your neighbors, go meet them in person. NextDoor is a nexus for cranks, complainers, and worse.

  71. 71.

    The Midnight Lurker

    @TaMara (HFG): Forgive me, I am old and confused and not on Facebook. I can barely work the ‘tubes’. But I have seen screen shots of some pretty creepy pages on FB, complete with some very disturbing images.

    Let me get this straight – Bixby is a dog, right? And you got banned for showing Bixby’s junk?

    Wow! I hope they don’t go over to my veterinarian’s page. She did a whole series on ticks and had all sorts of close ups on swollen animal naughty bits.

  72. 72.

    trollhattan

    @dr. luba:
    What would happen if somebody posted to FB a query about Betty White’s housekeeping? “I’m concerned that Betty is trying to do too much. Can somebody please help Betty and take out the White trash?”

    #BettyWhiteTrash

  73. 73.

    trollhattan

    @StringOnAStick:
    The ND account for my neighborhood began benignly enough but eventually, mean people and trolls take over and ruin it, like virtually (heh) every other social media platform.

    Somebody figures out how to fix that built-in issue and they will make a million billion trillion. Until then I’m here on the sidelines, waiting for the phone to ring via somebody who’s not a telemarketer. And that brings me to another rant….

  74. 74.

    raven

    We reunite lost dogs and their owners all the time using Facebook. And I read the fucking New York Times, so what?

  75. 75.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    John Harwood @ JohnJHarwood
    per Gallup, Trump is the only POTUS in history of polling never to reach 50% approval in first 2 years

    also the only POTUS whose average approval for first 2 years (39%) was below 40%

    averages for predecessors: Obama 52%, GWB 70%, Clinton 48%, GHWB 70%, Reagan 50%, Carter 54%

  76. 76.

    Mnemosyne

    @Stuart Frasier:

    I have a lot of professional contacts on there, and there isn’t a good alternative for groups of people to be able to interact together right now. It sucks, but we’re stuck right now.

  78. 78.

    Spanky

    Woo hoo!

    The polar vortex has fractured, and the eastern U.S. faces a punishing stretch of winter weather

    The swirling winds tens of thousands of feet high in the sky above the Arctic — the dreaded polar vortex — broke apart into three parts to ring in 2019. Now the eastern half of the United States is about to feel the consequences.

    Weather models project the onset of a severe and punishing winter weather pattern in just over 10 days, with extreme cold and heightened storminess. In fact, the transition to this harsh winter pattern has likely already begun.
    …
    A blast of a bitter Arctic air is forecast to plunge into the eastern U.S. late this week and this weekend, the coldest of the winter so far in some areas — another possible sign of the vortex disruption.

    By Sunday, temperatures are forecast to be about 10 to 25 degrees colder than normal in the central U.S. and parts of the East. Temperatures may plunge below zero in Kansas City on Sunday, where the AFC championship game between the Chiefs and the New England Patriots will be played.

    But this cold snap may still just be an appetizer.

    Computer models suggest the onset of persistent and acute cold may hold off until between Jan. 25 and 30. In the meantime, temperatures may fluctuate wildly as this new, harsh regime becomes established.

    “This is more of a transition period,” said Michael Ventrice, a meteorological scientist at the Weather Co., which is owned by IBM. “We’re kicking out the old regime when the Pacific jet was bringing a lot of warmth to the U.S.”
    …
    “These impacts can last four to six, and maybe eight, weeks,” said Cohen, who expects the worst winter conditions to peak in February. After last year’s polar vortex disruption in February, abnormally cold and stormy weather dominated the eastern U.S. in March and well into April.

    Et cetera. Buckle in, all you East CONUS residents!

  79. 79.

    Mandalay

    @dr. luba:

    my speech “doesn’t follow community standards.” Nazis are ok, but “white trash” is a bridge too far?

    That reminds me of the time the American Family Association auto-corrected their headline about the sprinter Tyson Gay:

    Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials

  80. 80.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Lydia Polgreen @ lpolgreen
    NBC News staffers have been told not to describe Steve King’s racist comments as racist.

    Judah Maccabeets ? Retweeted Lydia Polgreen
    The imperative to appeal to the median white consumer is a form of political correctness so pervasive few recognize it as such, and far more powerful than anything people who typically complain about political correctness ever discuss.

  81. 81.

    Brickley Paiste

    “I don’t actually believe all of the extreme positions of the Party, but I became a member because it really helps me with my career.”

  84. 84.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @trollhattan: So, to be popular it’s best to be a Bush? How freaking weird is that?

    you have to stand next to a picture of Saddam while wearing flight suit costume

  85. 85.

    Kelly

    My wife is on FB and Next Door so I derive some benefits while maintaining an aloof distance. Out here in the Cascade foothills FB is the fastest source of local news. Things like fires, crashes, storm damage, local government shenanigans. A lot of nonsense as well but she knows who to pay attention to. We live along a lovely little river that sometimes becomes a madhouse on beautiful summer weekends. Haphazard car parking blocking the road, drunks crashing, obnoxious drunks scaring families out of the parks, trespassing. One of our friends came home one Saturday evening to find a party had been going on in their backyard all day. Had to call the county sheriff to run break it up. Some of the locals used Next Door to organize and lobby the county to get the situation back under control. Increased sheriff patrols, no alcohol in the parks, parking only in designated spots with a permit. Last summer was a huge improvement.

  86. 86.

    Ked

    I made a fake Facebook account about a decade ago when some things started streaming content there. It only designated a few friends, and those were all commercial entities, but the sheer amount of crap it glommed was appalling. Haven’t gone back in five years, and I never understood the appeal.

    Did it get so big because it was a first mover, or is there something about it that I’m too abnormal to understand?

  88. 88.

    Brachiator

    @dr. luba:

    Interestingly, shortly after, FB recommended to me a double wide mobile home for sale near me. Only $430 per month. I am not making this up.

    That is both very sad and very funny.

  89. 89.

    catclub

    @trollhattan: best to have a traumatic event, caused by outsiders, in your first two years on the job.

    Also, Clinton lack of popularity in first two years, was GOP polarization already happening. It had not happened for Democrats to automatically hate GOP presidents, yet.

  90. 90.

    Gravenstone

    @Jeffro:

    There is no reason other than trumpov-protection for a 68-year-old RWNJ to come out of the woodwork and jump into this mess.

    Well, there is one additional reason. Barr was the voice behind HW Bush issuing blanket pardons on his way out the door, quashing any chance of justice for Iran-Contra. So don’t be surprised if he’s there to reprise that role with a potential President Pence.

  91. 91.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Broccoli Pus: Someday very soon I hope to be able to post about you something on the order of

    Nothing ever became his imbecile existence as much as his leaving it.

    Just don’t throw yourself in front of a fast-moving vehicle – while a noble intention, it would undoubtedly traumatize the blameless driver who facilitated your transmogrification into longpork tartare.

  92. 92.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @trollhattan:
    Wars. Particularly the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Bear in mind, Democrats are willing to accept the Other Guy. Republicans are not. Hell, it’s the foundation of their politics.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    the median white consumer

    Polling shows that the white consumer at the 50% mark is a bigot who would rather not be reminded of that fact.

  94. 94.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @catclub: Also, Clinton lack of popularity in first two years, was GOP polarization already happening.

    also Clinton and Obama inherited saggging/crashing economy and a lot of dumb people after six months started whining “why haven’t you fixed it yet?”.

  95. 95.

    Gravenstone

    @Bobby Thomson: Apparently they don’t care too much if you tell Facebook as an entity to fuck off, as I do it rather frequently when their system does something (okay, everything) annoying.

  97. 97.

    trollhattan

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    That, I grudgingly get as a reflection of our extended national bout post-9/11 insanity, but how does HW achieve the same percentage? Admittedly, being not-Reagan was good enough for me, for a little bit anyway.

    ETA Frankensteinbeck reminds me of our Gulf War One, havin’ some fun (and Cole nearly getting his ass blowed up). A hundred-hour prime time war is the best ratings draw America can possibly have.

  100. 100.

    Barbara

    @schrodingers_cat: You and me both. But I also avoid awards shows, Bravo “Real Housewives” type shows and much more celebrity infused popular content like TMZ or Access Hollywood, but that means that we are probably outliers, not that a significant part of the populations isn’t addicted to celebrity culture. Although, really, I disagree with the use of the word “addiction” in this context.

  101. 101.

    catclub

    @trollhattan:

    but how does HW achieve the same percentage?

    I bet his popularity went through the roof from July 1990 to Jan-feb 1991. getting a war on. A popular one!

  102. 102.

    Peale

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Also it turns out while everyone knows that something is wrong with our very expensive healthcare system that screws us over and bankrupts us, and that making changes to make it better poll really well, the public will freak the fuck out if anyone ever tries to change it in any way except for the worse.

  103. 103.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @trollhattan: I was chalking it up to the first gulf war, but google reminds me that didn’t rev up till the fall of 90, so that wouldn’t explain such strong number over two years. Good economy, the press buying into George and Bar as our national grandparents. I remember the Panama invasion as more controversial, but did he get war president credit for that? I honestly can’t remember

  104. 104.

    Brachiator

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    NBC News staffers have been told not to describe Steve King’s racist comments as racist.

    Reminds me of when some media outlets refused to use the word “torture” when describing US interrogation techniques.

    Too many of these people simply do not understand the risks in accommodating Trump and the Republicans.

  108. 108.

    rikyrah

    Open thread—The Brexit vote

    That’s right, everyone. Vladimir Putin’s first serious attack against the West comes to a denouement today between 8 and 9pm BST. The House of Commons votes on Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal, and the tea leaves don’t look good for Mrs. May.

    Let’s rewind to why this vote occurred: former PM David Cameron—he of pig-head fornicator fame—was facing grumblings from the Eurosceptics in the Tories who were making noises about making trouble for him in his last general election. So, to mollify them, he put a referendum on membership in the European Union in the Conservative manifesto. His party won, and the referendum went ahead.

    Now, this referendum was solely advisory. It had no force of law. In the UK, Parliament is sovereign. Parliament had every right to disregard the results of the plebiscite.

  109. 109.

    J R in WV

    John:

    We do have standards, the ones you carefully put in place. No racism, no support of fascism, no hate speech about anyone but Republican fascist traitor motherfuckers. I like these standards, and find them easy to stay within.

    I call Zuckerburg’s piece of work FascistBook now, even if it pisses off the folks I know that use it to stay in touch with family, arrange gigs, etc. It is what it is, and it is a work of shit.

  110. 110.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @A Ghost To Most:

    My personal opinion on businesses that rely exclusively on Facebook for their web presence instead of a traditional website is that it’s extremely unprofessional and doesn’t speak well of them

  111. 111.

    Brickley Paiste

    “I mean, sure, I’m contributing to the destabilization of democracy but I HAVE A MORTGAGE TO PAY!!!”

    Some people are so morally compromised that they they don’t even see the problem with that thinking.

    SAD

  113. 113.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: I’ve been forwarding and tweeting and FB-ing the crap out of that one. Chilling stuff, both on what’s happening domestically and on how autocrats around the world have realized they don’t need to conquer territory, cancel elections, or shut down the press in order to get what they want.

  114. 114.

    Spanky

    Too soon to have a full article, but WTF?

    BREAKING: A federal judge Tuesday refused to compel the government to pay federal employees who have been forced to work without pay during shutdown.

    (WaPo)

  116. 116.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @rikyrah:

    Now, this referendum was solely advisory. It had no force of law. In the UK, Parliament is sovereign. Parliament had every right to disregard the results of the plebiscite.

    Oh, but that would be undemocratic. So let’s just jump over the cliff anyway because of a Russsian active measures campaign that made a slight majority of idiots vote to leave the best thing that’s ever happened to the UK.

  117. 117.

    joel hanes

    @catclub:

    Any other guesses?
    In many jurisdictions it’s illegal to consume alcohol in some kinds of public spaces. Drunks stereotypically “disguise” their bottles and cans in paper bags.

    So I’m guessing this person wanted to drink in public, and poured the wine into a Pringles can to disguise that act.

  118. 118.

    Gex

    @germy: Yes

    And YouTube is getting a lot less attention than it should but it was a huge problem before Facebook and has played an important role in the rise of GamerGate and the alt-right.

  120. 120.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Barbara: I haven’t had cable in since 2011. First it was out of necessity (no cable in our little hill town) and now its out of habit. Don’t miss it much, either. And I have never watched a Kardashian on TV.

  121. 121.

    Uncle Cosmo

    The Book of Feces needs to meet a composting* toilet. (* SWIDT? :^D)

    Aaaaand a new bumpersnicker to go with my PELOSI 2019:

    ZUCK FUCKERBERG!

  122. 122.

    trollhattan

    The Barr hearings (why am I reminded of a chunky Elton John?) include some really weird stuff.

    Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) grilled President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Justice Department over a mysterious payment to acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker. The acting attorney general received more than $1.2 million in salary from a conservative nonprofit that does not reveal its donors, and Whitehouse asked nominee William Barr whether he would investigate the payments.

    “In my letter to you I expressed my concern that Mr. Whitaker was paid $1.2 million through what I consider to be a front group that has very little reality to it,” Whitehouse said, “and that the funding that came to that front group to pay him, the million dollars came through another entity that is essentially an identity-laundering operation that has no independent business operation.”

    Whitehouse said the payment’s mysterious origins made it impossible to comply with ethics regulations.

    “The result of all of this is that somebody out there arranged to get over a million dollars to Mr. Whitaker,” the senator said, “and we have no idea who that somebody is, and as I mentioned to you in our conversation, I don’t see how we do a proper recusal and conflict analysis for somebody when the player who delivered the million dollars is still hidden behind the curtain. Is that something that you will help us fix?”

    Barr said that he did not believe Whitaker had done anything wrong, and Whitehouse cautioned the nominee that there weren’t enough facts in evidence to make that determination.

    “Here, nation’s top law enforcement official, have a giant sack of money several times what you earn in a year. It’s because you love you, ya big lug!”

    What in the name of sweet unicycling Ronny Reagan is the USAG, or any government employee, doing receiving a giant gift of money from invisible people?

  123. 123.

    different-church-lady

    My facebook account is closed to the public, meaning that only people I know personally, who follow me and whom I follow, can see what I post.

    Yeah, that’s what you think.

  125. 125.

    randy khan

    @Mandalay:

    I don’t know about the iPhone, but fingerprint login now comes as a standard option with the cheapest iPad.

    iPhones had fingerprint access for years before it came to the iPad, but all the current models use facial recognition and have ditched the fingerprints (as well as the physical button).

  128. 128.

    Mnemosyne

    @Brickley Paiste:

    Hey, not all of us get a steady paycheck from Russia. Some of us have to do actual work for a living.

    But if you’re offering to pay my living expenses so I can quit my job, I accept! Send me your banking information so I can set up the automatic transfers to my account.

  131. 131.

    trollhattan

    It seems like just yesterday that Cheryl linked to the Gillette “Don’t be a douche, bro” ad. Wait, it was a day ago. Some predicted backlash. Take a bow, y’all.

    Comments on the video are largely negative, with viewers saying they will never buy Gillette products again or that the advert was “feminist propaganda”.

    “In less than two minutes you managed to alienate your biggest sales group for your products. Well done,” wrote one angry viewer. Twitter users are also sharing their disappointment with Gillette’s new campaign.

    However.

    But while the response to the ad has been largely negative, as the old saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

    “Their next steps are very important but it shouldn’t necessarily be widespread panic yet,” Rob Saunders, an account manager at UK advertising company the Media Agency Group, tells Radio 1 Newsbeat. “Their ad is getting them good publicity and good numbers and causing a debate – which they must have known when they put out this ad. Rob says Gillette will have anticipated a negative reaction to the advert from some people.

    “This ad would have been approved by many people high up at Gillette,” he adds. “So they must have known that there may have been a backlash.”

    Rob believes the strong reaction is because the ad is such a shift from how Gillette was previously promoted and that has surprised people. “It’s such a change in stance for Gillette and it’s happening overnight, particularly with the social commentary and that’s why it’s done such huge numbers.”

  134. 134.

    trollhattan

    Netflix and bill.

    Streaming service Netflix has announced it is raising its prices in the US. The company is increasing the cost of its standard plan in the US from $10.99 to $12.99 a month.

    The rise – between 13% and 18% depending on the plan – marks the firm’s second increase in less than two years and is the most significant since it launched streaming video in 2007.

  136. 136.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ken:

    Ah, but he’s not advising Facebook employees to quit their jobs. He’s advising anyone whose employer or freelance job uses Facebook to quit their jobs.

    I guess my friend who just started a freelance gig doing PR for authors should give that up and go back to her grinding corporate job, because the corporate job doesn’t require her to use Facebook, so it’s obviously more morally righteous than working for herself. ?

  137. 137.

    NotMax

    Drinking wine from a Pringles can = recycling.

    Drinking wine directly from the box = déclassé.

  139. 139.

    Mnemosyne

    @raven:

    I did, and I replied back. I really wish my stupid migraine auras would have a predictable pattern so I could recognize them in time to take preventative medication. ?

  143. 143.

    Fair Economist

    @trollhattan: Establish a monopoly, raise the price. Standard operating procedure.
    To be fair, it still compares well to a typical premium cable package.

  147. 147.

    Mike in NC

    WaPo has a story up that Fat Bastard tried to invite a bunch of Democrats in the House to over lunch at the White House, where he would presumably serve them the cold leftover fast food garbage from the Clemson event. They all told him to piss off.

  148. 148.

    The Moar You Know

    NextDoor is a nexus for cranks, complainers, and worse.

    @StringOnAStick: My wife just introduced me to it and I have never been more appalled in my life. These are my neighbors? THEY’RE MORONS. Holy shit. They get up every day and manage to go to the bathroom without critically injuring themselves. It’s a wonder. And then they go to jobs and make house payments? People HIRE them? The mind reels.

  150. 150.

    randy khan

    @Ked:

    Did it get so big because it was a first mover, or is there something about it that I’m too abnormal to understand?

    I’m not sure if it was a first mover (probably either FB or MySpace), but it’s a big beneficiary of network effects – if you want to find one of your high school friends you’ve lost touch with, the odds are much better there than anywhere else. And Facebook also figured out something that Apple also got – while techies want everything to be totally customizable, most users really want to just be able to do some stuff without having to figure out how, and want predictability in how they interact with a site or device. That probably was a big factor in Facebook dominating social media (and an equally big factor in MySpace’s decline).

  151. 151.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Doug R: Yep. They feed the bears to keep them around, then bitch when they need to be controlled. String did the right thing. It’s hard coexisting with selfish assholes.

  154. 154.

    ruemara

    @smintheus: Some of us have jobs that require it. Some have family & friends who you can keep in touch with them that way. Rather than trying to break the back of something that’s already an overgrown monster, you might do better to regulate it.

  155. 155.

    randy khan

    @trollhattan:

    I think everybody who’s in PR knows that people who are unhappy are much more likely to complain than people who are happy, so they’re probably discounting the hate posts significantly.

  158. 158.

    Fair Economist

    @Amir Khalid: I would have thought water would damage them, but after I poked around on the internet a bit it seems Pringles cans really are waterproof, at least for a while. In one video somebody even boiled water in one.

  159. 159.

    randy khan

    @Cheap Jim:

    They have to be airtight to prevent bad things from getting into the cans. (In addition to the bad, if kind of addictive, things that already are in the can.)

  160. 160.

    Barbara

    Some may be interested to know that the vote on May’s Brexit deal is happening right now, with results likely to appear in the next 30 minutes or so.

    She kept trying to delay it to create a crisis mentality that would take away any other choices.

  161. 161.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Amir Khalid:

    Really? And here I thought he was getting paychecks to come troll here. I’m guessing the exchange rate for rubles to US dollars isn’t very good these days, is it?

  162. 162.

    randy khan

    @Fair Economist:

    To be fair, it still compares well to a typical premium cable package.

    I’ve seen several efforts to figure out whether it’s cheaper to get cable or to cobble together something equivalent from over-the-top sources, and the results have seemed inconclusive.

    Of course, part of what Netflix (and Amazon and the others) are doing now is creating platform-exclusive programming, so you can’t exactly replicate them from other sources.

  164. 164.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Barbara:

    The EU said they could back out any time they wanted to. But that would be undemocratic and I guess they have to respect the results of a likely Russian-tainted referendum.

  167. 167.

    Brachiator

    @trollhattan:

    It seems like just yesterday that Cheryl linked to the Gillette “Don’t be a douche, bro” ad. Wait, it was a day ago. Some predicted backlash. Take a bow, y’all.

    I wonder what competitor would be so stupid to launch an ad campaign based on the following:

    You’re an insensitive asshole with sensitive skin. We’ve got the razor for you.

    I’ma cut a b*tch blades.

  169. 169.

    Mnemosyne

    @randy khan:

    while techies want everything to be totally customizable, most users really want to just be able to do some stuff without having to figure out how, and want predictability in how they interact with a site or device

    This. Techies vastly overestimate how much enjoyment non-techies get from trying to get computer shit to work. Most people just want to use the tool to do the project.

    It’s like making a hammer so customizable that it takes an hour to prep it so you can hang one picture on the wall.

  170. 170.

    Brachiator

    @Barbara:

    She kept trying to delay it to create a crisis mentality that would take away any other choices.

    She was helped along by the fact that no one offered any reasonable alternatives.

  171. 171.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Made the mistake of turning on MSNBC in time to see the words “Senator Marsha Blackburn”. Now I just wanna go back to bed

  172. 172.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Gravenstone:
    Didn’t she and John have a running feud a few years back?

    I check out her Twitter feed from a few months ago and this lovely tweet came up:

    #HillaryClinton I will accept your good faith on the subject of #BrettKavanaugh ‘s alleged attempted rape if you will do just one thing first: Denounce your husband.

    Yeah, because cheating on your wife and attempted rape are the same thing.

  173. 173.

    Barbara

    @Brachiator: That’s a reason to have the vote not delay it. Also, apparently when MPs vote they actually go to different places to vote yes or no, and right now, the no lobby is mobbed.

    ETA: MPs reject May’s Brexit plan by 432 by 202 – a majority of 230
    Theresa May’s plan has been rejected by votes to 432 votes to 202 – a majority of 230.

    From the Guardian’s UK site.

  175. 175.

    Gravenstone

    @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??: She’s had a running feud with reality for as long as I’ve been aware of her. But yes, she has been quite the subject of mockery here, so it wouldn’t surprise me if she and JC have had more than a few heated exchanges over time.

  177. 177.

    Brachiator

    @Mnemosyne:

    This. Techies vastly overestimate how much enjoyment non-techies get from trying to get computer shit to work. Most people just want to use the tool to do the project.

    It was ever thus.

  179. 179.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Mnemosyne:
    I’m young and I’m often overwhelmed by all the features on gadgets. I never use most of them. I only use my smartphone to text, browse the internet, make calls, do calculations, wake me up in the morning, and only occasionally use Google Maps as well as app games. That’s it.

    I don’t need the super special Samsung fitness/biometrics crap.

  180. 180.

    frosty fred

    @Mnemosyne: I compare it to the general acceptance of automobiles: Some owners do want to work on their own engines and understand every mechanism; most of us just use them to get from here to there and only want them to be reliable.

  182. 182.

    JR

    @eric: The difference being that Facebook is an eminently disposable resource. For >95% of its users it provides no economic benefit at all, which is quite different than gas or even consumer electronics.

  186. 186.

    ruemara

    Also, if Seattle Juicers want to have a meetup, well, you don’t have to hurry because you don’t have to do it when I’m there, but if you’d like to have one when I’m there, decisions need to be made. I arrive Thurs, so if you’d like to do the dining thing, I guess contact me since we haven’t really jelled anything. Otherwise, still have a meetup at some point! You’re all there and so is food and then send pics.

  188. 188.

    Brachiator

    From the Guardian:

    Theresa May has sustained the heaviest parliamentary defeat of any British prime minister in the democratic era after MPs rejected her Brexit deal by a resounding majority of 230.

    Now the fun begins.

    A little tidbit to pay attention to.

    Brexit-supporting Conservatives joined with opposition parties and the Democratic Unionist party to trounce the government in the “meaningful vote”, which the prime minister delayed before Christmas in the vain hope of winning over waverers.

    The DUP may have cut their own throats. They hated every proposal related to BREXIT and seem to think that they can make time stand still.

  189. 189.

    Rand Careaga

    @catclub:

    I bet his popularity went through the roof from July 1990 to Jan-feb 1991. getting a war on. A popular one!

    Someone observed at the time that GWHB’s poll numbers were at levels not generally observed outside countries in which door-to-door opinion surveys were conducted by the secret police.

  192. 192.

    Major Major Major Major

    One of my college friends keeps posting pictures of women protesting topless with a note that Facebook specifically lets you post pictures of women’s nipples if it’s within the context of a protest. The first couple were taken down but after successful appeal all the rest have stayed up.

    At any rate, it’s not the content I’m looking for when I idly check Facebook on the train or at work, so I muted her. But good for her.

  194. 194.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Brachiator:

    The DUP may have cut their own throats. They hated every proposal related to BREXIT and seem to think that they can make time stand still.

    I bet they’re going to love having a hard-border with Ireland.

  195. 195.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Major Major Major Major: Now that you’re ensconced in New York, you should be aware that being shirtless in public is fully legal for all persons of any gender. I wonder if Facebook is aware of that? Although that’s probably not something you’ll encounter much in January.

  196. 196.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Major Major Major Major:

    At any rate, it’s not the content I’m looking for when I idly check Facebook on the train or at work, so I muted her. But good for her.

    But….

    pictures of women protesting topless

    Oh that’s right. You’re what used to be called a “confirmed bachelor” ?

  198. 198.

    JPL

    @The Moar You Know: It depends where you live. DIL’s nextdoor offers recommendations and a little gossip but not much. Mine is similar but we try to update on local city hall meetings and other community events. Of course we have the local coyote sightings and lost dog postings.

  199. 199.

    Yutsano

    @ruemara: If by some reason yours doesn’t come together, we’ll have another chance as I’ll be over that way next weekend.I wish I could manage this weekend but unemployment is being asses about paying me. But I’m also considering a SoCal run once I’m back in a paid status, so other opportunities down there will emerge as well.

  203. 203.

    different-church-lady

    @Keith P.:

    If so many sites didn’t use Facebook as an identity service,

    For me, when that happened is when Facebook went from creepy nuisance to outright menace.

  204. 204.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    I don’t mind when a UI includes a hundred options which I’ll never use. I do mind when the basic functions are non-intuitive.

    I know what you mean. But even knowing what should be a “basic function” and how to make it intuitive takes talent.

    I’ve worked with developers who took it as an article of faith that you should never even look at the user guide when you get some new product. You should just be able to work with it and figure things out.

    Unfortunately, this attitude also reflected how they approached the products they designed for our customers. In a way, they wanted customers to prove that they were worthy of the time and effort the developers put into the product.

    This kind of thinking, of course, is a recipe for disaster.

  206. 206.

    Amir Khalid

    @Brachiator:
    May did BBC interview recently where the reporter repeatedly asked what she would do if she couldn’t get her Brexit plan through Parliament. May’s repeated answer: she was focused on getting her Brexit plan through Parliament. I thought then, and I think now, that she was tacitly admitting that she had no idea what to do in that event.

  209. 209.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Gravenstone:
    She has a blog too. Remember Trump serving cold fast food to the Clemson players? You’d think it would receive universal mockery. You’d be wrong. A typical commenter at Althouse:

    Hmm, I guess the question is, Did these college kids like this smorgasbord of burgers?

    When I was in college, Yes, I liked fast food. What a surprise.

    Trump probably is closer to the pulse of 22-year old hungry football players from the South than the whiny beta male commentators at the Wapo.

    And apparently, the Clemson quarterback loved the room temperature fast food:

    The Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence declares, “It was awesome… We had McDonalds and everything. It was good!”

    Another fan asked Lawrence how many times he plans on returning to the White House — to which he replied, “Hopefully, a few more!”

    But then again, what else could he have said? Though I believe he was sincere, unfortunately.

  210. 210.

    different-church-lady

    @Gex:

    They went out of their way to further anti-Semitic lies about Soros.

    They didn’t go out of their way: they chose it as their route.

  212. 212.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    May’s repeated answer: she was focused on getting her Brexit plan through Parliament. I thought then, and I think now, that she was tacitly admitting that she had no idea what to do in that event.

    I heard that interview. It was nuts. Some observers thought that no one in her party had any ideas and that she was hoping that the EU would offer some concessions that might save her bacon.

    Unfortunately, the EU did not want to interfere or to side with anyone as long as it looked as though the British might work out some compromise.

  214. 214.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I was only joking, so you know. Tumblr recently did the same thing back in December, which I joined by the way. It’s great! The only part I don’t like is that posts don’t have timestamps.

  216. 216.

    different-church-lady

    @dr. luba: Try doing exactly the same post but substitute “Whyte Traysh”. Let’s see if it’s bots or humans doing the flagging.

  218. 218.

    different-church-lady

    @trollhattan:

    Somebody figures out how to fix that built-in issue and they will make a million billion trillion.

    You can’t fix junior high school.

  220. 220.

    Brickley Paiste

    Yeah the miners and the Wobblies and millions of other Americans with no money in the bank and little food in the cupboard strikes against their employers and got their heads cracked or fired from their jobs … but look for a job that doesn’t further entrench fecesbook? That is an INCONVENIENCE, Sir!!!

  223. 223.

    different-church-lady

    @Brachiator:

    I’ve worked with developers who took it as an article of faith that you should never even look at the user guide when you get some new product.

    I’ve met these people. They are idiots.

  225. 225.

    Leto

    Fuck you Zuckerberg, you piece of shit nazi enabler. And I can say that here, because as you all know, we have no god damned standards.

    Fucking preach. Zeroed, repeat for effect.

  226. 226.

    catclub

    @trollhattan:

    Ronny Reagan is the USAG, or any government employee,

    he was not a government employee at the time he got the money. He was just hired by some wingnut welfare front group and paid $1.2M because they liked the cut of his jib.

  227. 227.

    JustRuss

    @schrodingers_cat: JFC Ted Koppel, we pay attention to Trump’s “ups and downs” cuz he’s the goddam POTUS, and the crazy shit he does affects millions of people. Is he seriously suggesting that if we just ignore him he’ll go away?

  229. 229.

    Miss Bianca

    @Brickley Paiste: Oh, fuck off. Like you wouldn’t have been first in line to break a few Wobblies’ heads, you fatuous, scabby skidmark. Now just stick your head back up your ass where it belongs. None of us missed you while you were hopping around the bathroom trying to pull it out so’s you could impress us with your DEEP THOUGHTS.

  230. 230.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    In a video published by TMZ Sports, Lawrence said he enjoyed the meal. “It was awesome,” he said. “We had McDonald’s and everything. It was good.”

  232. 232.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Romance novelists keep getting banned from Facebook for having half-naked men in their book covers, which is like banning mystery or thriller authors for having a picture of a gun on their book’s cover. It’s a wee bit annoying.

  236. 236.

    Origuy

    I was in Moscow in 2013 and the exchange rate was 33 rubles to the dollar. Now it’s 67. I’ll bet the old pensioner lady I stayed with is really suffering.

  237. 237.

    May Merrill, Girl Reporter

    @may: Facebook specifically seems to get triggered by the word ‘trash.’ I work in social media and some of the other things that get through are… Well, you can imagine. But the Facebook moderation robots are all over calling some one trash or trashy. ?

  238. 238.

    Procopius

    @Barbara: I, too, use it for shallow interaction with people I otherwise have no contact with, primarily a couple of distant cousins who live on a different continent from me and several former students. It never occurred to me that anyone would think they could be informed from it., but sometimes one of my friends will share an interesting article about a scientific article. I assume any facebook page is as trustworthy as Fox News or CNN.

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