Friday, October 12, 2018

Facebook: The social network's 48th block against our Church and State website since 1 December 2015, with no explanation as usual. And this time with no end in sight to boot (WITH UPDATE - DAY 9 20/10/2018)

Criminal.
-Don Collins, President of ISAF, an NGO dedicated to helping women

Our Church and State website has no less than 40 Nobel Prize winners on it; for details, see this blog's sidebar under "Church and State" (updated today).

Facebook does not have a political bias? The social network's blocks against our Church and State website have gone from 47 days in 2017 - when we topped 3 million hits by the end of November - to 139 days so far this year (5 out of 9 months). This time they are stopping me from posting in groups without first passing through a time-consuming security check for every post I wish to make (called by them a block "to prevent spammers from creating fake accounts and spamming users"), and this for an undisclosed period of time and without explaining what I have done wrong. This is the ninth time they have produced this particular sort of block. The last time they did it, the block lasted 2 days.



UPDATE 20 October (11.37am): Last Saturday Facebook exchanged one block for another without missing a beat. This is not the first time they have done this, and, as before, has been recorded as a block continued (9 days), albeit in a different form. No explanation provided as usual. They say that the block will be lifted this evening. For what it's worth.


Facebook blocks (in days)

January 2018: 16 days
February 2018: 15 days
March 2018: 29 days
April 2018: 17 days
May 2018: No blocks in May
June 2018: 14 days
July 2018: 17 days
August 2018: 11 days
September 2018: 12 days
October 2018: 16 days (until 20 October)

4 September: Fighting for survival in London: Facebook's concerted campaign against our Church and State website shows no signs of waning (WITH UPDATE 20/10/2018: re Block 48 DAY 9) This link reveals that we are currently under attack on more than one front. For example, blocks on the category pages on Church and State remain under constant attack. As I point out in my most recent blog post about Royal Mail misdelivering our mail, the second article below has more than 1/2 million Facebook likes/shares (not zero):



Re: Investigatory Powers Tribunal

The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) dismissed Declan's complaint against the secret services on papers in less than three weeks, on 1 September 2011, stating that it was "obviously unsustainable". This is paragraph 11 of Declan's updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

11. The IPT was created in October 2000 by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and given the power to investigate any complaints against GCHQ, MI5 or MI6, as well as complaints about surveillance operations mounted by the police or any other public bodies. The Guardian reported on 5 March 2014 that the tribunal, which claims to be completely independent of the UK Government, is secretly operating from a base within the Home Office, by which it is funded. The newspaper found that the IPT had investigated about 1,500 complaints and upheld only 10, five of which concerned members of one family who had all lodged complaints about surveillance by their local council. No complaint against any of the intelligence agencies had ever been upheld. The discovery that the IPT is lodged within a Whitehall department fuelled criticisms of the tribunal that had been levelled by rights groups, lawyers and complainants. The IPT's critics complain that the secrecy is excessive and that its procedures are stacked so heavily in favour of the government and against complainants that it is fundamentally unfair. According to The Guardian, some senior lawyers have described the IPT as "Kafkaesque", while one eminent barrister has dismissed it as a "kangaroo court". The newspaper also reports that because of the secrecy surrounding the tribunal and the perception that it is unfair, many would-be complainants spurn it.

Click to enlarge

Updated complaint to the United Nations: https://issuu.com/lolaheavey/docs/un-complaint-may-2018





Is Edward Snowden a Hero or Criminal? This is a solid documentary called #Citizenfour that may influence your thinking either way:



JOIN THE CONVERSATION #CITIZENFOUR

From My Picks:

8 May 2018: Threat to life: Updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Today we are cut off the internet for a half an hour


http://churchandstate.org.uk/honorary-associates/