Church and State blog: Facebook: The social network's 56th block against our Church and State website since 1 December 2015, and with no explanation as usual (WITH UPDATE

Sunday, February 24, 2019

Facebook: The social network's 56th block against our Church and State website since 1 December 2015, and with no explanation as usual (WITH UPDATE - DAY 8 3/3/2019)

Our Church and State website has no less than 49 Nobel Laureates on it; for details, see this blog's sidebar under "Church and State" (updated today).

Ted Cruz asks if Facebook is a "neutral public forum". Mark Zuckerberg admits Silicon Valley is an "extremely left-leaning place" and claims he tries to make sure the company does not have a political bias. pic.twitter.com/gaWw7ORQDY
— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) April 10, 2018

Facebook does not have a political bias? Despite opposition from the social network, our Church and State website topped more than 3 million hits in 11 months from January to November 2017. Subsequently, Facebook's blocks against the site went from 47 days in 2017 to 179 days in 2018 plus 32 days this year. Nonetheless, we get hundreds of thousands of hits - over 2 million hits in 2018 despite the equivalent of 6 months of these blocks. Last March they blocked me from posting Church and State articles in groups four times (for 29 out of 31 days), and all without explanation. Tonight I received this notification of their 56th block against Church and State since 1 December 2015:

This is the second such notification this month. These notifications without an explanation come out of the blue. There's no way of knowing for sure whether or not next month will be another wipeout from Facebook, and without an explanation being given. However, our Facebook blocks so far this year closely mirrors last year's blocks in days:

Facebook blocks (in days)

179 days in 2018
- 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
- November 2018: 19 days
- December 2018: 13 days
32 days in 2019
- January 2019: 16 days
- February 2019: 13 days
- March 2019: 3 days (until 3 March)

My previous Facebook post of 12 February, Fighting for survival in London: Facebook's concerted campaign against our Church and State website shows no signs of waning (WITH UPDATE 19/2/2019: re Block 55 DAY 8), contains more detailed statistics and reveals that we have been, and remain, under attack on a number of fronts. For example, the now on-off assault on our two primary laptops aside, the category pages in Church and State are under attack daily to fluctuating extent. As I point out in my earlier post about Royal Mail's service, all three of the articles below have over 1/2 million Facebook likes/shares, not zero. Tonight the first article stands at 629K, the second article at 578K and counting, and the third article at 616K.

UPDATE 3 March (12.47pm): I appealed this latest block from Facebook on 24 February, and true to form, there has been and will likely be no response from them. On another front, we are not getting emails through to Nobel laureates or even to our closest colleagues. I recorded on 21 February that 68 Nobel laureates out of those Declan has emailed since 3 January had not seen their email. According to my email tracker, only 12 out of 110 resends have been read; see my updated post of 30 December 2018, Our emails now are getting through to no one, not to Nobel laureates or even our closest colleagues. Declan will keep trying to get through to Nobel laureates with the use of his mobile phone (WITH UPDATE 3/3/2019). The post reveals a letter in June 2010 from then Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone to now Prime Minister Theresa May about the interception of our emails. An American professor wrote at the time: "I am truly appalled by the unlawful violation of the Heavey's basic right to send and receive email without interference. I would be most grateful for anything you may be able to do by way of taking measures to correct this gross abuse."

'Independent' court scrutinising MI5 is located inside Home Office http://t.co/ZezpDipCPx via @guardian
— Ian Cobain (@IanCobain) March 5, 2014

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

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:

4 January: Information Commissioner: Declan battles the Commissioner's Lead Case Officer over the nature of his data complaint against the Mayor of London-commissioned St Mungo's (WITH UPDATE 31/1/2019) What an experience!

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

'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

http://churchandstate.org.uk/about/

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

Sunday, February 24, 2019

Facebook: The social network's 56th block against our Church and State website since 1 December 2015, and with no explanation as usual (WITH UPDATE - DAY 8 3/3/2019)

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