Church and State blog: Facebook has issued me another warning

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Facebook has issued me another warning

Facebook has just issued me with another warning. And in the same manner as on 21 March (see previous blog “Facebook no longer permits me to add friends”): as I was adding like-minded people - other atheists, humanists, etc - as FB friends. In fact, I had only done four or five when the warning popped up. I now have 506 friends and many have well over 1,000 of their own. Indeed, it would appear that there is no limit to the number of FB friends you can have; PZ Myers, for example, a favourite of mine, has 4,994 friends.

Just in case I am taken down this evening (as the warning threatens I will be), I have an up-to-the-minute snag of my wall, FB friends, including the contact information for the US and British journalists and bloggers who have befriended me, and all emails I have sent and received through my FB account. I find it quite outrageous that FB can seemly terminate accounts at will, without explanation or clarification, especially since I have worked quite hard, putting articles and videos on my wall which may be of interest to the community; they frequently get good response too, particularly of late. But it sure looks like my FB account is heading the same direction as the original NAC website and Declan’s petition to the UN in support of therapeutic cloning, which has been signed by 24 Nobel Laureates (see “About us”).

Changing the subject, yesterday Declan was ticketed by a police officer for sitting in the local train station, which the officer deemed “loitering” (a first), and tomorrow I am back begging in the same station, subject to arrest as begging is illegal in the UK (the last time I had to ask people for some change was last Easter). Should I be arrested tomorrow morning, I will insist that the following email letter from Declan yesterday evening to the Chair of The Big Issue Foundation Steven Round, together with its attachments, be used in my defense by the solicitor appointed to me - and on appeal, if necessary (The Big Issue is a magazine sold by homeless people on registered pitches throughout the UK; we have been selling it since December 2006):

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr. Round,

Previous correspondence refers. In the light of the seriousness of the situation my wife finds herself in, I wish to bring to your attention as chair of The Big Issue Foundation my email and attachment of even date to The Big Issue Company (please see attachments).

Should my wife in fact be arrested for begging in the local train station this week, and assuming you have no objection, she will present this email and attachments to you to the solicitor appointed to her case.

I can confirm that this evening I received an email of reply on behalf of The Big Issue Company from Outreach and Distribution Manager for London, Mr. Paul Joseph, stating:

Provided you move on when the registered vendor arrives you are entitled to work the pitch. Can you confirm that it is vendor 1739 who you have spoken to and we can speak to him.

I replied: "I can so confirm, the same vendor 1739 against whom I lodged a formal complaint with The Big Issue Company on 24 July 2008 for harassment and intimidation on my (then) pitch at McDonald's on Liverpool Street"; I received Mr. Joseph's "Out of Office AutoReply".

In the event of error in transmission, please note that the order of attachments is as follows:

The-Big-Issue 1.4.doc 27kb
The-Big-Issue-Foundation 23.2.htm 12kb

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Yours sincerely,
Declan Heavey

For the record, this is the first attachment, Declan’s email to Outreach and Distribution Manager for London Paul Joseph yesterday (the second attachment, Declan’s letter of complaint to Round on 23 February, is presented here):

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr. Paul Joseph,

I re-transmit for your attention as the Big Issue outreach and distribution manager for London my email of 31 March regarding The Big Issue, presented below, to which I received your "Out of Office AutoReply" yesterday afternoon.

I attach copy of my most recent email of 23 February to the Chair of The Big Issue Foundation, Mr Steven Round, on the subject of, inter alia, the making available by The Big Issue of my pitch at McDonald's on Liverpool Street to other vendors to register as from 18 November 2008.

I am hoping that my wife (badge no. 1170) will not have to resort to begging in the local train station this coming Friday morning.

Please would you acknowledge receipt.

Best regards,
Declan Heavey
Big Issue badge no. 1163

------------------------------

Subject: The Big Issue

Dear Mr Paul Joseph,

I would be much obliged to you if you could please have the vendor to whom McDonald's on Liverpool Street has been allocated informed that when he is not on this pitch I am fully entitled to be on it.

It has got to the stage now that to buy two Big Issues my wife and I have to scavenge in bins at night and go hungry for days on end.

Surely this vendor's repeated insistence that I go get my own pitch (most recently this lunch time) is unnecessary and discourteous, if not deemed by the Big Issue Company to be in flagrant breach of codes of conduct?

Best regards,
Declan Heavey
Big Issue badge no. 1163

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.

Church and State blog

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Facebook has issued me another warning

About me

My Picks

Church and State

Blog Archive