Church and State blog: Facebook's 21st block against our Church and State website since 1 December 2015 (WITH UPDATE 19/8/2017)

Monday, June 19, 2017

Facebook's 21st block against our Church and State website since 1 December 2015 (WITH UPDATE 19/8/2017)

Yesterday public access to our Church and State website was denied five times. I have updated my blog post of 16 January with yesterday evening's 505th block on access to the site since 26 July 2016. This afternoon I have been stopped by Facebook from posting to groups without first passing through a time-consuming security check for every post I wish to make. This, as revealed below, is Facebook's 21st block against our Church and State website since 1 December 2015; they themselves call it a block in the video above. Don Collins, President of the Washington, DC-based International Services Assistance Fund, writes: "Glad you compiled this odious record of mistaken blockage. What possesses the site? Surely after multiple postings they must know your content is neither lewd nor extreme." My appeal reads:

For the attention of Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Facebook

19 June 2017

Dear Facebook,

I wish to appeal your decision this afternoon to stop me from posting to groups without first passing through a time-consuming security check for every post I wish to make (called by Facebook a "block"), and this for an undisclosed period of time and without any stated reason.

Before this block, I had not posted to groups at all today; and yesterday, as always, I only posted to groups that are specific to an article's subject and that I am well familiar with. I have made a video of the security check I must pass through to post to groups; it can be viewed at https://youtu.be/smmDAM8M0-w. In this video I am trying to post Prof. Paul Cliteur's New York Times article "Terror Has Already Led to Self-Restraint" to the closed group Sam Harris & The Future of Reason, of which I am a member. Prof. Cliteur is Professor of Jurisprudence, Leiden University (the Netherlands) and is one of our listed Authors.

This is Facebook's 21st block since 1 December 2015.

1st 1-4 December 2015 (4 days)
2nd 5-7 December 2015 (3 days)
3rd 6-9 January 2016 (4 days)
4th 12-15 January 2016 (4 days)
5th 20-22 January 2016 (3 days)
6th 13-16 February 2016 (4 days)
7th 23-26 March 2016 (4 days)
8th 20-23 May 2016 (4 days)
9th 25-30 May 2016 (6 days)
10th 1-3 July 2016 (3 days)
11th 7-8 September 2016 (2 days)
12th 21-22 September 2016 (3 days)
13th 27-28 September 2016 (2 days)
14th 29 September - 3 October 2016 (5 days)
15th 4-5 October 2016 (2 days)
16th 18-23 October 2016 (6 days)
17th 9-14 December 2016 (6 days)
18th 4-6 January 2017 (3 days)
19th 20-23 January 2017 (4 days)
20th 17 May 2017 (1 day)

Facebook has responded to only three of the 20 appeals listed above, citing "technical problems" in each instance. Don Collins, President of the Washington DC-based International Services Assistance Fund (and who is another one of our authors), writes: "Surely after multiple postings [Facebook] must know your content is neither lewd nor extreme." I only post to groups articles that I have already published on our Church and State website.

Please note that we currently have an international list of 121 Honorary Associates, including two Nobel prize winners. Since Facebook's 16th block last October, 91 distinguished academics and other intellectuals have given us permission to add their names to the list.

Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter.

Yours faithfully,

Lola Heavey
Webmaster
Network for Church Monitoring

"Let me recommend an important web site - churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out." - Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty

2 October: Complaint to Facebook Chairman, Chief Executive and Co-Founder Mark Zuckerberg on day 4 of Facebook's 14th block since 1 December 2015

Re: Facebook

Draft paragraph 42 of Declan's next updated complaint to the United Nations under Article 19 (freedom of expression) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

42. On 13 August 2011, then Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone wrote to Facebook on the Applicant's behalf, asking that they explain why the Applicant's wife had been barred. The bar was subsequently lifted; however, since 1 December 2015, Facebook have blocked the Applicant's wife from posting to a pages and/or groups on 21 separate occasions, and up to six days at a time (each of these blocks is well accounted for in the N4CM blog). On 22 December 2015, Labour's Lyn Brown, then Shadow Home Office Minister and now Shadow Home Secretary, made an enquiry on the Applicant's behalf to Facebook UK Managing Director Steve Hatch asking if he could offer an explanation as to the terms and conditions the Applicant's wife was alleged to have broken twice previously. To the best of the Applicant's knowledge, Mr Hatch did not respond to this letter. The Applicant's wife only ever posts to groups that are specific to an article's subject and that she is well familiar with, and she only ever posts articles that she has already published on the Church and State website. Nonetheless, Facebook have responded to only three of the Applicant's wife's 21 appeals since 1 December 2015, citing "technical problems" in each instance.

1st 1-4 December 2015 (4 days)
2nd 5-7 December 2015 (3 days)
3rd 6-9 January 2016 (4 days)
4th 12-15 January 2016 (4 days)
5th 20-22 January 2016 (3 days)
6th 13-16 February 2016 (4 days)
7th 23-26 March 2016 (4 days)
8th 20-23 May 2016 (4 days)
9th 25-30 May 2016 (6 days)
10th 1-3 July 2016 (3 days)
11th 7-8 September 2016 (2 days)
12th 21-22 September 2016 (3 days)
13th 27-28 September 2016 (2 days)
14th 29 September - 3 October 2016 (5 days)
15th 4-5 October 2016 (2 days)
16th 18-23 October 2016 (6 days)
17th 9-14 December 2016 (6 days)
18th 4-6 January 2017 (3 days)
19th 20-23 January 2017 (4 days)
20th 17 May 2017 (1 day)
21st 19 June 2017 (day 1)

Facebook UK Managing Director Steve Hatch

UPDATE 19 August (10.16am): When it comes to stopping me from posting Church and State articles directly to pages and/or groups, Facebook's 21st block since 1 December 2015 was confined to 19 June (one day). There's no telling what's next from Facebook. This is my report to them on 24 July citing five other kinds of blocks since 5 April (the block against an excerpt from a book by Prof Paul Cliteur records as an unprecedented 18-day block against a single post):

For the attention of Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Facebook

24 July 2017

Dear Facebook,

I posted the following reply to your message in my Support Inbox (please find your message attached):

Please note that the link you are treating as spam is to an excerpt from Paul Cliteur's book "The Secular Outlook". Prof. Cliteur is one of the Netherlands' leading public intellectuals. He is professor of Jurisprudence at Leiden University, the Netherlands. "The Secular Outlook" is published by Wiley-Blackwell; see https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secular-Outlook-Political-Secularism-Philosophy/dp/1444335219.

On 5 April I reported that the page listing all the groups I belong to was not working. With this rectified, I reported on 10 April that I couldn't schedule posts on my page. Then I reported on 12 April that my scheduled posts were not posting. On 6 June I reported that every time I posted to my page a link to an excerpt from a book by Pascal Bruckner, one of France's leading public intellectuals, it disappeared from the page as soon as it was posted. I was unable to post the excerpt from Dr. Bruckner's book to my page until 21 June (a 16-day block).

Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter.

Regards,
Lola Heavey
https://www.facebook.com/networkforchurchmonitoring/

UPDATE 19 August (continued): We now have a distinguished list of 127 Honorary Associates from around the world, including two Nobel Prize winners. Since Facebook's 16th block against our Church and State website last October, 97 distinguished academics and other intellectuals (in April, 22 people) have given us permission to add their names to the list. Nonetheless, the blocks on public access to our Church and State website continue unabated. I have updated my blog post of 16 January with this morning's 669th block on public access to our Church and State website since 26 July 2016. The blog post also not only reveals a record-breaking 52 such blocks in one week at the end of April (an unprecedented escalation that kicked off with our focus on Denmark's cartoon crisis; 74 blocks last month), but it reveals the daily targeting to fluctuating degrees of category pages throughout the site which continues to this day. For example, as I point out in an earlier blog post about the almost certain loss of our employment contracts to the United States by Royal Mail (as opposed to the United States Postal Service), the second article below has 1/2 million Facebook likes/shares (not zero):

UPDATE 19 August (continued): And it's not just Facebook blocks, blocks on public access to our Church and State website and the daily targeting to fluctuating degrees of category pages throughout the site that Declan and I are dealing with these days. We have also been dealing with Internet cuts since 26 May. See my blog post of 21 June, Internet cuts: We pay £65 per month for BT Infinity but feel we are in a race against time to stay online (WITH UPDATE 19/8/2017 RE: 131st Internet cut since 26 May 2017).

From My Picks:

9 June: Ministry of Justice: Complaint to the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice against the County Court at Central London, Royal Courts of Justice (WITH UPDATE - Day 13 21/6/2017)

'Let me recommend an important web site churchandstate.org.uk. Operating out of London this well-designed and exciting web site covers church-state, population, climate change and other issues. Check it out.' - Edd Doerr, President, Americans for Religious Liberty

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

Monday, June 19, 2017

Facebook's 21st block against our Church and State website since 1 December 2015 (WITH UPDATE 19/8/2017)

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