” .. I used to watch my grandkids on a daily basis,” says John Tamburello. “And now that they’ve all moved away, it was nice being on Facebook.”
But some users, like Tamburello, have learned the hard way that what they post online can get them censored, suspended or even kicked out of the social networking circle – with little or no warning.
“Next thing I know, my account just went dead. I just went back to the sign-in page and I couldn’t sign on,” Tamburello explains.
He was kicked off of the site for several weeks for posting some jokes that Facebook deemed offensive. ..”
~ Banned from Facebook
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” … It’s only been around 3 weeks and it’s all over the news again. Not content with already banning Jesus and God, Google+ decided to ban Star Trek actor, William Shatner, for having the temerity to say hello. ..”
~ William Shatner ‘illogically’ banned from Google+ for saying hello
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Back in August 2012, I did a piece called “Don’t build your web presence on free or proprietary platforms” –
It sort of went like this … “Everything that you load to a social site, whether it be Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest .. ceases to be your intellectual property. All of your thoughts, ideas, and good effort becomes owned, and legally, by which ever social site platform you choose to load to. None of your “stuff” belongs to you, exclusively, the second you load it to a social site. ..”
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You hear it everyday. Someone, somewhere, gets banned or otherwise booted from a social network because of something. It doesn’t matter what really .. from a presumed TOS violation, to a guy that’s having a bad day — people, teams, celebrities, and companies get banned or suspended daily from the social networks.
Whenever you join a social network, it’s important to remember that you are putting yourself out there. Your stories, your thoughts, your persona all becomes a part of the social network itself. There are quite literally millions out there that don’t necessarily think the way you do. And it’s because of this, we see people, every day, getting banned for one reason or the other.
When you sign up to join a social network, you are limited in what you can do. You become subject to the whims and desires of someone else pretty easily. From vague Terms of Use Policies, to someone not having the ability to keep an open mind, or being able to view the world how it really is. Social networks aren’t the quaintly styled walled garden that AOL once was. Social networks are much more fascist than that. You do what you’re told, and since these are run by private corporations, you don’t have the right to free speech. You exist simply because they allow you to.
Out of all of the ways to communicate online these days, social networks are at the bottom of the pile.
There are plenty of mediums from which to choose: Platforms that can be hosted on your own domain .. platforms that you or your hired web developer can control directly. Whether it be a full-blown CMS (content management system), a weblog, or a forum, it doesn’t matter, because with these, you have the power to be the person you are. No one to become offended .. no one to ban you from the service because you told a joke that a social network without even as much as a tech support department doesn’t like.
Socrates once said, “Wisdom is the understanding our our own ignorance.”
Once people begin to understand that there is a great big internet out there that’s free for the use and for the taking, they’ll throw the yoke of the social network off their backs and move into the world of free speech .. a world where they can be themselves again .. free to express themselves in ways they never could have imagined. Advertisers will discover that they might actually have to do a little work for a change. Long gone will be the days of shooting their targeted ads at the fish in a barrel.
If you are getting tired of the social networking heavy hand, try a blog, or a CMS .. who knows .. The freedom just might look good on you.
