Facebook had to ban people like me

And was eager to partner with our government to do just that.

Facebook only bans people smart enough or brave enough to criticize stupid and evil government policies.

As Forrest Gump’s sweet and wise mother said, “Stupid is as Stupid does.” But she could have said, “Evil is as Evil does.”

Today’s rant is about Meta (Facebook and Instagram) censoring the content of its billions of users.

But Meta really only censors the content of the millions of global citizens who agree with Mrs. Gump. The company doesn’t want stupid policies to be exposed as such. Nor does it want evil people and organizations to be exposed. 

On the other hand, if you’ve been a good citizen and never criticized any authorized CDC policy as ignorant or evil, Facebook will gift you with a smiley-face emoji and leave you alone.

Furthermore, the company has enthusiastically conspired with officials in our own government to suppress free speech.

If you read at least one article today, let it be this one from Reason magazine, which presents example after example, proving that Meta employees and U.S. government officials worked together - every day for years - to block potentially life-saving speech.

I’m one of the throngs of Facebook users who has had my Facebook account suspended or terminated in the last two years.

Nobody from Facebook ever told me what specific words I shared that were false or “dangerous,” only that I violated the company’s policies against “misinformation” or “disinformation.”

So the company banned me.  What it really did was silence my voice and make it where I couldn’t share my own opinions.

What Meta (and our own government!) has done is ban the voices of people who are not stupid.

I’m the type person Facebook had to ban …

I consider myself to be a half-way intelligent person. I made good grades in school. I’m curious about the world. I’ve always been a voracious reader and have tried to keep educating myself on important issues. I tend to gravitate to people who I think are also at least half-way intelligent. So I’ve been influenced by the thinking of other people I consider smart.

Since I’ve tried to be fairly informed on important subjects, I couldn’t help forming opinions about certain topics. Since I’ve spent so much time thinking about the world, I think my opinions are worth being included in any societal debate.

Nor am I the type person who is afraid to share a personal opinion, especially if it involves a topic I’ve thought a great deal about.

It is within this context that I made many posts about Covid topics, which I viewed as not just any prosaic subject, but one of the most important issues of our times.

“Down goes Frazier (Rice)!”

First, Facebook put “warning” flags on my posts and then it reduced the reach of my audience via algorithms and artificial intelligence that flagged key (off-limits) words. Then the company began to “suspend” my account, sending me into speech “time out.”  

Now, like certain screenwriters in McCarthy-era Hollywood (times one million), I’m permanently banned from publishing content via this media platform. 

At one time, I had about 1,600 Facebook “friends.” Four years ago, when I posted a photo of my kids doing something cute, I think I reached all 1,600 of these people. If I posted something about sports or a popular TV show, a few of these posts would be shared widely and I’d reach, potentially, a lot more than 1,600 people. 

But when I started saying that I thought lockdowns were going to be a disaster and weren’t necessary or that most people had nothing to worry about from Covid (especially healthy young people), I crossed a posting bridge too far.  When I questioned the “safe and effective” vaccine narrative I definitely became persona non grata on Facebook.

All I was trying to do was share an opinion and, just like I was taught in school, I always tried to back up my opinions with arguments and facts. As a good journalist is supposed to do, I cited my sources.

But my sources disagreed with Anthony Fauci and the experts at the CDC … and if you skim the article I reference above, you’ll see that these are the only sources that matter to the army of “content moderators” now employed by Meta.

So they banned Bill Rice, Jr from Troy, Alabama.

They’ve actually banned numerous experts with ph D’s and far more impressive credentials than I possess.

Twitter, now owned by Elon Musk, has recently un-banned some of the people this social media company previously banned. But Facebook is still owned by the same billionaire and this person must think he’s doing God’s work (or Uncle Sam’s … or Satan’s?) so my ban is still in place.

Facebook is awful, but it still matters ….

I’ve always thought the Facebook bans were more significant because Facebook reaches far more people than any other communication platform on the planet. Facebook does reach the every-day Janes and Joes of the world or the “town square” or the Rotarians or the working moms who don’t tweet. 

If anyone wants to take a stab at influencing public opinion, he might as well “fish where the fish are” and that ocean is … Facebook …. so that’s where I opined … or tried to.

For our rulers, I now think global censorship was the most important project to ensure their “Most Important Thing” occurred. And “the most important thing” was getting everyone vaccinated, which set the table for “vaccine passports,” which will facilitate greater digital control of the masses.

But it wasn’t just the Dr. Peter McCulloughs or the signers of the Great Barrington Declaration who had to be silenced to make this goal possible; it was also the Bill Rice’s out there in social media land who were trying to influence anyone and everyone in our own little orbits of influence.   

Opinions outside the punditry class also matter ….

Every town has a few contrarians like myself, people who are fairly well-known and (I think) respected in our communities. These people, even if we are often skeptical of conventional wisdom, would be potential “opinion leaders.” 

Although we don’t have pundit credentials and don’t get invited to the D.C. parties (and wouldn’t attend if we were), our grassroots’ ranks constitute a threat to the Powers that Be.

If such people - the every-day Adults in the Hinterlands -  started making posts that “went viral,” the narrative controllers would have a problem.

But not if these potential influences couldn’t say what they thought. 

From the perspective of our government leaders, banning the speech of such people was imperative. 

Furthermore, If they could make an example of such people (labeling them as unpatriotic or dangerous pariahs), other, less bold, social media commentators might be less inclined to share thoughts they secretly believe. 

So people also began to self-censor. It didn’t take long before billions of people on Facebook knew the type things they could NOT say … at least if they wanted to keep posting pictures of their children on Facebook.

This particular government program and conspiracy achieved exactly the intended result.

While I doubt my persuasive powers would have been enough to stop Covid “crimes against humanity” from occurring,  if a couple million people on Facebook were saying the same things I was saying, our side might, collectively, have had a fighting chance.

I now think damn near everything is a protection racket for society’s real rulers. And the effort to silence free speech on Facebook was a pre-emptive, coordinated attack to protect the real Bad Guys. 

Today, I thank God we have at least a few forums started by entrepreneurs who still believe in free speech … so at least I can vent on Substack. If readers agree or disagree with me (something that doesn’t threaten me), they can comment in the Reader Comment Section beneath this article. 

But I cannot link this article to Facebook, which means I’m not reaching the people who know me best, people I’d probably have the best chance of influencing … if I was allowed that chance.

Not only are the leaders of my government okay with this, they’re still conspiring with Facebook to make sure people like me can’t criticize them.

That symbolic feather floats back to … Big Brother

Forrest Gump’s mother told her son, “Stupid is as Stupid does.”

What she was really saying is we shall know stupidity by its actions.

But what if you can’t even call out Stupidity? 

What I now believe is that evil people take advantage of the fact they know Stupidity is everywhere. Whoever really rules the world knew that Mark Zuckerberg and his employees would fall in line.

If I could make one more post on Facebook, I’d ask two questions of the people who banned millions of people like myself:  “Do you not know what you’ve done? Or are you just that stupid?”