The Time I Got Punished for Hate Speech
It's been quite a week for me already, because I was thrown in jail and released 24 hours later. I had no counsel, no Miranda rights, and no chance for an early release. However, this wasn't a literal jail. It reaches farther into society than the place people go when they break our criminal laws.
This was Facebook jail.
I've used Facebook since 2009, and despite my sometimes heated political rhetoric and, admittedly, outright troll-baiting, this was the first time I was censored and banned. The alleged offense? Hate speech. Yes, that vague and often indefinable term that nevertheless causes liberals to gasp and swoon.
In the world of the political or societal liberal, any instance of what they believe to be hate speech shows how much work there is yet to do in re-educating the masses about what is deemed unacceptable speaking or writing. It's an ongoing task because despite their best efforts to police our language and society, people continue to use words they don't like.
Hate speech changes on a whim, which is why we need self-appointed overlords to guide us toward correct and approved conversations. "Drug addict" is now a "substance-abuser." "Illegal alien" is now an "undocumented worker." "Welfare handouts" are "entitlements."
My offense on Facebook was commenting twice about transgenderism in an accurate and correct manner. Over the weekend, I posted on the threads of conservative friends about the transgender situation, and I received several "likes" for my attempt at bons mots. Fast-forward to Monday morning, when I received two separate warnings that Facebook had deemed both posts "hate speech." After the second warning, I was put in a virtual time-out penalty box for 24 hours to contemplate the error of my ways.
What scurrilous and insulting lies did I post? Nothing but the truth. The first post was in response to an article about the potential causes of suicides of transgender children, to which I wrote: "Mental illness drives suicide rates, not the refusal by others to play along with someone pretending to be another gender. Transgenderism isn't a biological issue; it's a psychological problem." Scary stuff! Obviously, a person with that opinion cannot be allowed to speak or write in polite society, despite the fact that everything I wrote was 100 percent accurate.
My second comment concerned the confused 17-year-old child known as "Jazz Jennings." Jennings was born a boy, but he has dressed and expressed himself as a girl for several years, garnering praise from the LGBT community and a show on the TLC cable network titled I Am Jazz. Jennings is quoted as saying, "I want to be the mother of my own child, but I know if I adopt, I'll also be a great mother anyways and I'll give them all the love I have inside." In an sane society, such ludicrous ignorance would've been corrected by now, but because a child feels different about something or another in life, we're supposed to take them seriously and not interfere. In our modern world, feelings trump facts. Jennings must be a girl because he feels like a girl, and to voice disagreement with his feelings is (yes, you know it's coming) hate speech. Also, I referred to Jennings as "him" because I understand basic human biology.
In an article posted by a conservative friend on Facebook, Jennings stated that he is going to have his sex organs mutilated to appear female later this month. I responded to the post about the upcoming surgery by writing: "That's just bodily mutilation, fueled by his mental illness. After his surgery, he won't be any more of a woman than Bruce Jenner is now." Again, 100 percent accurate, but also 100 percent hate speech, as Facebook ruled.
I should add that both my posts were in response to comments made by like-minded Facebook conservatives. I didn't troll liberals to stir up controversy, but I guess they found me anyway.
We know that Facebook is yet another tool that leftists use to censor conservatives, despite what Mr. Zuckerberg claims. We know he's a liar, as well as a liberal, when he claims they're just trying to make Facebook a welcoming place that fosters diverse discussion. Baloney. They allow anything with which they agree, and if a liberal protests, which is most likely why my comments were flagged, it's off to Facebook jail for the offender. What's particularly galling is that there is no way to appeal one's banishment from what is currently the largest social network online. The people running Facebook make and enforce the rules, which is their right, but assigning the vague term of "hate speech" to anything potentially offensive to other liberals is disingenuous at best. They slap the label on anything they don't like, including my posts that challenged the liberal mindset about transgenderism.
So I rode out my time in Facebook jail, commiserating with friends via old-fashioned email because my Facebook Messenger was also turned off during this time, lest I spread more of my "hate speech." Did I learn anything during my virtual incarceration? Yes. The Facebook admins are every bit as authoritarian and repressive in this digital world as the Gestapo were during their time, but without the spiffy uniforms. Will I modify my speech and behavior? Not a chance.