It seems the guys at Google and Facebook have nothing better to do than messing up with accounts of their users. While Google demoted my block after its initial censorship, Facebook has altogether blocked me from my account.Surprisingly whenever companies like Google or Facebook have to adopt measures that are neither strictly legal nor in conformity with their own policies, they always invoke the trump card of “spam communications”. Of course, spam is a violation of terms of services (TOS) of any company, including Google and Facebook, but a resource must actually be spam to invoke such penalty.
We have been experiencing censorship by various online platforms from time to time. This may be due to the critical and bold analysis that we make from time to time. Critical analysis is definitely protected under Indian and US constitution as freedom of speech and expression. If a post or resource is well within the limits of constitutional right to speech, it cannot and should not be curtailed.
It seems commercial interests and draconian laws are forcing companies like Google and Facebook to censor users’ accounts, posts and messages. Clearly this is an illegal and unconstitutional act on their part and they must cease to indulge in these practices.
While I am still continuing my blog, it seems time to say goodbye to Facebook has arrived. All those individuals who were following my activities there and wish to continue to do so are invited to the Priyanka Sharma Daily. It seems to be a better alternative to Facebook and is more comfortable and user friendly.
However, this episode of Facebook has reminded me of the statement by Julian Assange that Facebook is an “appalling spying machine” and its insistence upon mobile number is sufficient proof of the same. It is better to leave Facebook than giving a mobile number, so goodbye Facebook.
It is well known that spy agencies and intelligence agencies world over use social media for open source intelligence (OSINT) purposes. US even plans to use, perhaps already using, fake virtual people botnet and persona management software to gather inputs from social media websites. Time has come to question the dubious practices of social media websites and blogging platforms so that they can be sterilised from malicious people violating civil liberties of netizens.
