Church and State blog: Still blocked by Facebook

Friday, April 03, 2009

Still blocked by Facebook

I just wanted to update my Facebook situation which basically is exactly the same as yesterday (see previous blog), getting a warning and then I am blocked from adding folks from the people you know tool – this time I was stopped after 16. Actually, a FB group has now been formed "Support Lola Heavey - Stop Facebook Banning Her", which can be accessed here. The point of the matter is that I do value my FB account a great deal. For example, as a result of comments that FB friends have left on my wall regarding articles and videos I have posted, the NAC website now includes a new section in “What we do” called “Oppose fundamentalism and extremism” for all three of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Muhammadanism (Islam)) and Hinduism. My FB friends have a tremendous amount of talent (and humour) and Declan and I would very much like to bring what we can of it to NAC. I don’t think I should be penalised for this! A quotation from Carl Sagan, which a FB friend just posted on his wall, says it all:

Fundamental changes in society are sometimes labeled impractical or contrary to human nature: as if nuclear war were practical or as if there were only one human nature. But fundamental changes can clearly be made. We are surrounded by them. In the last two centuries abject slavery, which was with us for thousands of years, has almost entirely been eliminated in a stirring world wide revolution.

Anyway, this morning was my first time back begging in the local train station (see previous blog). It is actually illegal in the UK to ask people for some change, so as soon as I have a couple of pounds I am gone: we don’t spend any money, except on a few toiletries and the occasional £3 for seven hours in the local internet café (I only get three hours on my membership card in the local library). Of course, I am quite familiar with this begging thing (see, for example, blog of 5 April 2008 “Declan narrowly escapes being assaulted”).

Declan has received an email from Limehouse Police Violent Crime Unit suggesting that he calls police immediately when he next makes sight of the homeless guy against whom he has three crime references numbers so that he can be arrested (see blog of 24 February Declan threatened with assault); the Dellow Day Centre of the Catholic Sisters of Mercy Providence Row Charity is not divulging the identity of this guy to police even though they do know his details. Declan has been washing in the street since 10 April of last year due to harassment and intimidation by other homeless, particularly in the Dellow (see blog of 8 February “Letter to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor”), and it sure looks as if he won’t be seeing the Dellow’s washroom for a while yet. For the record, this is the email Declan received from Detective Constable Paul De-Krestser:

Re: Crime Reference Number 4204029/09

Dear Sir,

I am sending this letter by way of e-mail since I do not have a permanent residence to write to you. I hope that you are well.

With regard to your complaint of being assaulted, the circumstances of it make it very hard for the police to progress it effectively.

Firstly, even though you have had three unfortunate events involving the same suspect you do not know the identity of this suspect. Without knowing whom the suspect is it becomes impossible to arrest him.

Secondly, The Dellow Centre due to their professional considerations is not divulging the identity of the suspect to police even though they do know his details. The police service is not in a position to demand that the Day centre release the details of the suspect to us. Many of these organisations have their own confidentiality policies.

Thirdly, there are no witnesses to this event.

The only way, we can progress this investigation is if you can find out the name of the suspect and thereby identify who he is.

What I can suggest to you is that you call police immediately when you next make sight of the suspect so that he can be arrested and this matter can be investigated. You must maintain your safety.

Until such time this crime report will have to be closed.

Please reply to me with your thoughts.

Yours sincerely,

Paul De-Krestser DC

Church and State

MAYOR OF LONDON RSI PROPERTY
DAY 406 IN A WEEKLY PERIODIC TENANCY
SUBJECT TO A SECTION 21 NOTICE

(SEE PARA. 3 BELOW)

1. Our 308 Honorary Associates include 20 Nobel Prize laureates. Declan and I are engaged in a project that deals with the publication of issues significant to social policy in a number of key areas, e.g., climate change, population, futurism, atheism, and free speech. Established as Network for Church Monitoring, a non-profit company limited by guarantee, our main publication, found at the website, Church and State, calls attention to subjects, not the least which have been critical of the interaction between religious and secular institutions. We have been the target of numerous threats and actions, e.g., the former resulting in threats to Declan's life, and the latter, which have led to vandalism. The various incidents are on record with the police and other official agencies.

2. There are no less than 63 Nobel Prize laureates on the Church and State website from 20 Honorary Associates, eight articles, nine book excerpts and 33 petition signatories. (For example, one Nobel laureate signed our Nobel petition in support of human embryonic stem cell research and gave us permission to excerpt from one of his books.) Our list of associates also includes 18 US National Medal laureates, and six Turing Award laureates (the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science). We have published one article and excerpted from the books of seven members of the British House of Lords. And there are 31 knighted professors on the site from 13 Honorary Associates, one book excerpt and 21 petition signatories. These figures are despite the never-ending assault on our email (this link reveals the targeting of our emails to, among others, a close colleague in Washington, DC as well as space advocates and Nobel laureates).

3. This is Day 406 for us living under the threat to life of a 'no fault' eviction by Peabody Trust.[1] We live in a Mayor of London's Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) property. Peabody's appalling new terms of tenancy have forced us into an unstable weekly periodic tenancy that poses a threat to Declan's life and inhibits our ability to exercise our rights. Declan accumulated quite a history with the Housing Ombudsman Service before he received the Ombudsman's decision not to investigate a referral from Lyn Brown MP on jurisdictional grounds. The Ombudsman was asked to consider whether or not our tenancy has been renewed like for like; and whether, if not, it should be in light of the landlord having accused us of not signing a like-for-like agreement. The Equality and Human Rights Commission will not accept a referral of discrimination from Ms Brown, the Commission's helpline (EASS) having grossly distorted the complaint against Peabody. We no longer have pro se access to the courts (see next paragraph).

4. This eviction matter came before District Judge Ruth Fine at the Central London County Court on 30 June 2020, when both counsel for St Mungo's (the charity in effective control of our tenancy) and Declan presented their positions. Declan lost the case and was ordered to pay £1,850 in costs. A publishing colleague in America cleared these costs within 24 hours of my blog post about this hearing for strike out on a related issue that was the essence of the claim, i.e., that St Mungo's would take a phone call to confirm that we are clients of the Mayor of London's RSI programme. Within a week of the hearing, St Mungo's had agreed to take this phone call for us both, the Court having ruled that they were not obliged to do so despite our circumstances. This time we escaped bankruptcy (counsel for St Mungo's asked for £3,407.50 in costs), but consider that to seek pro se access to justice in the courts has become far too dangerous for us. Declan currently has before the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman the decision of the Information Commissioner that allows St Mungo's to continue processing coercive support plans without our knowledge or consent and that also poses a threat to his life.

5. When it comes to traffic, we have had 10.7 million hits in the past three years on Facebook; however, I left the platform on 13 March 2021 for one year rather than risk being banned for life. It is indisputable that with any sort of level playing field Church and State would have far exceeded 2.5 million hits last year. In addition to a large variety of blocks without explanation, Facebook had so severely restricted our Page's distribution by October 2020 that it was almost as good as an unpublished page.[2] Currently, we are up to their 85th block since 1 December 2015, and as usual without an explanation. This block records as one half of their 3rd double block in the first five weeks of this year that lasted 60 days. Our traffic has also been curtailed by over 2.5K blocks on access to Church and State since 26 July 2016, including 29 full distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks since 17 May 2019 that have lasted for as long as 54 hours at a time.[3] About 70% of our hits are from Americans.

"This is precisely the hard hitting kind of response needed to clarify the unfair way Facebook is treating your highly reputable site." Don Collins, Founder, International Services Assistance Fund, Washington DC

Last updated: 26/06/21

_________________________

[1] Once a fixed term has elapsed, the landlord has the option to seek eviction even if the tenant has upheld their obligations in full (though of course the landlord must still apply for and obtain a county court order).

[2] 17/10/20: We have permission to publish this ISAF letter of 30 September to Facebook COO Sheryl Samberg. Facebook has so severely restricted our Page's distribution since 4 September that it's almost as good as an unpublished page

[3] Since October 2019, we have been defining a full DDoS attack as having such a high volume of up to 4-minute blocks on access to Church and State that we don't bother recording them all.

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Friday, April 03, 2009

Still blocked by Facebook

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