Have You been to Facebook Jail for Justice?

I saw someone making bigoted and homophobic remarks about the first openly-gay U.S. governor, Jared Polis, on (of all things) a Facebook thread about Britney Spears finally getting her conservatorship ended.  After reading her hateful message to Gov. Polis about being married to another man, I told the person I wondered exactly how ugly of a human being she is and flagged her post for hateful speech. Facebook updated me by confirming her comment was hateful speech and removed it.

But Facebook also said I was harassing and bullying her by asking her this question and put me in Facebook Jail for 24 hours.

There was no appeals process or opportunity to respond before the deprivation commenced. This is a common experience for many of us on social media, likely many times each. And almost certainly because these decisions are made by algorithms who do not understand the moral context of the statement ("ugly human being"); likely instead recoding Facebook to combat worsening eating disorders and depression (especially related to recent internal research leaks about in teen girls on Instagram who struggle with self-image issues). So this kind of over-correction is the result.

Almost every one of these online policy decisions have a significant annual negative impact on commerce because many social media users also rely on these platforms for advertising and sales. And yet responses to such matters are almost all determined (along with sanctions imposed) by an automated process long before a person reviews the matter in question. Who wrote the Facebook Constitution, anyway? Why shouldn't there be a Social Media Bill of Rights to include sufficient due process from actual human beings employed by major online platforms?

Time Traveling with Google Street View

 I accidentally discovered a wormhole while using Google Street View. This could be used to travel back in time to warn people about future events.

Western Transitions (a brief travelogue)

 What would it be like to travel with only my thoughts? What would it be like to wander without a fixed destination, with only the most minimal of itinerary? What would it be like for an ordered, organized person to design a spontaneous adventure for the first time?

After much trepidation, some guidance from friends, and a truck packed with outdoor gear and a camera, I set off on a thirty day road trip across the Pacific Northwest. I didn't exactly know where I would go, or when I would get there, but I gave myself permission to discover those answers along the way.

And those became my Western Transitions.

What Happened to Carol?

After a random encounter on a WSJ article, I posted this on her Facebook wall. I'm sure she'll block me at some point, but I wanted to write it out and share here:

Everyone I Don't Like is a Sheep

 ✨🐑🐑🐑✨  In the age of coronavirus, this has become a best-seller!  ✨🐑🐑🐑✨

Ledonne v. McClure Case Summary

For those of you who met me recently, or for those who didn't know much of this story, I'm sharing this Powerpoint here, which I received for the first time over the weekend and had not seen prior.

This presentation was prepared by the ACLU of Colorado in June 2016 as part of our mediation conference and lays out the facts of the lawsuit I filed against my former employer, Adams State University.  I have added two final slides as a post-script to summarize the outcomes for myself and Beverlee McClure, the former president of ASU.

This was one of the most formative experiences of my life and served as a strong motivation for attending law school.

Talking to Protesters Outside Planned Parenthood

 ✨✨  ✨✨ Today's to do list:

✔ Pulled my bike over in front of Planned Parenthood on my way home.

✔ Talked to a religious couple with signs protesting the clinic.

✔ Learned about how they hadn't convinced anyone to change their mind about abortion.

✔  Learned they have never actually been inside a Planned Parenthood or used their services.

✔ Learned about how nobody who works at the clinic is interested in talking to them, yet they continue standing outside their workplace anyway, which is stalking behavior.

✔ Pointed out to them that their presence while wearing camouflage probably intimidates people who visit or work at the clinic, especially given the history of bombings and shootings by right-wing terrorists.

✔ Pointed out they are probably there to make themselves feel better, not to help anyone else, and their behavior is creating harm.

✔ Asked how they would feel if people made a practice of organizing protests in front of their church, especially based on intentionally misleading information about their church, while demanding that their right to worship was outlawed.

✔ Got them to admit they weren't comfortable with: 1) the federal government fully banning abortion, 2) the conditions of other countries in which abortion is banned, especially for women and girls, 3) locking up poor women for getting one while incentivizing wealthy women to receive one overseas, and 4) creating medical injuries or deaths from back alley abortions on the inevitable black market.

✔ Assured them that God had sent an atheist to deliver these important messages for them to pray about. ✨✨  ✨✨

"Why Do You Have To Make Everything About Race?" Starter Pack

 It's 2021 and the Left Can Still Meme.

Donald Trump is the Republican Party

After the annual Carnival of Culture War Dumpster Fires that is CPAC, it should be perfectly clear to us all: Donald Trump is the Republican Party - the lying, the racism, the xenophobia, the resentment, the anger, the oblivious and incompetent understanding of governance, the ant-democratic hatred for We, the People. All of it.

It's all yours now, Republican Party. You gleefully rode on Trump's claims of birtherism, vitriol towards Mexicans and Muslims, scoffing at the law and democratic norms, and contempt for a free press. Now you must own the cancerous lesion of Trumpism you have desperately protected for the past decade in the belief that you needed Trump to promote your white identity politics of resentment and regression. The world is changing and leaving you behind, Republican Party. It cannot happen soon enough.

So there's nothing left to be confused about. We do not "need" two political parties in this country so long as one of them is so infected by "alternative facts" that it ceases to function as a viable institution. The Republican Party must be contained for what it has become: a regional toxicity to be stripped of power and exposed for its total illegitimacy.

Mistreating Robots

 Just something I've been thinking about...