By Nicky Reid aka Comrade Hermit

Exile in Happy Valley

It has recently become abundantly clear that Facebook hates my fucking guts. I’ve suspected as much for a while now but this week it became pretty much undeniable. After posting my praise for the latest victories of the fabulous Houthi rebels, those faceless censors at America’s biggest social media juggernaut regretfully informed me that I had violated their pristine standards by supporting “dangerous individuals and organizations”, and since this was my third offense, they’re blocking me from posting on all their platforms for thirty days. They tossed another 7 days of forced isolation from instant messaging on the fire when I attempted to finish a comment on a friend’s post that I was in the middle of when they spanked me. Apparently, I’ve been a bad bad girl. Pappa Zuckerburg needs to send me to bed without supper thirty times in a row, all at the height of social distancing season with my clinical depression already in full bloom. I can’t even message my epileptic bestie back in plague ravaged England to make sure she’s not ice cold on the kitchen floor of her girlfriends flat. And for what exactly? What the fuck even is a dangerous individual or organization?

According to Facebook, their are several markers that identify such undesirables. But none of them really fit.

1.) Terrorist activity. The Houthis are in no way shape or form a terrorist organization. They are a civilian militia fighting off an American backed genocide. Even MBS’ ginger gimp in the White House has decided not to designate them as such. The Saudi Arabian government on the other hand has been a devoted supporter of Wahhabi terrorism for decades and, last time I checked, none of the western rags who kissed their ass before they went Scarface on Jamal Khashoggi have been banned.

2.) Organized hate or violence. OK, sure, maybe the second one, but doesn’t the US Army have a Facebook page? Who’s got the higher body count, the wolf or the wheat thresher? As for the first, I won’t deny for a second that the Houthis treatment of Yemen’s Baha’i minority is deplorable, but this hardly makes them a hate group, especially in the sectarian minefield of the Middle East. The Houthis’ declared mission is to liberate their land from foreign influence, pretty much everything that follows is another specter birthed in the fogs of a war they didn’t start.

3.) Mass or serial murder. Only if defending their people from these very crimes counts. Yeah, I call horseshit.

4.) Human Trafficking. Nope. No smoke their either. Once again, I’m pretty sure that sweatshop archipelagos like the Gap and Old Navy have unmolested Facebook pages.

5.) Criminal or harmful behavior. Harmful behavior? What, like anorexia, drug abuse, crippling debt, cancer, climate change and obesity? By those blatantly vague standards you could hang the entire Fortune 500 with the flick of a single lever. I can think of worse ways to get a boner before lunch.

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