Banned in Boston -- and everywhere else!

So, I just got banned from Facebook for 24 hours because I joked that I wanted to launch my neighbor out of a cannon.

This isn't the first time I've been banned. I got a fact-check warning a couple years ago for posting an obvious satire about Donald Trump making a campaign stop in Boise and being so drunk he fell off the stage while making a speech full of gibberish. It made a pretty funny story too. But Facebook doesn't like it when you make stuff up -- sometimes.

Before that, I was given another 24-hour ban for "hate speech" -- because I dared to suggest that some white men can be pretty dang dense sometimes.

Interesting that FB should go after me for these things when they allow people to spread right-wing conspiracies, coronavirus vaccine misinformation, and massive conspiracy theories implying that Donald Trump will be returned to the presidency -- not to mention the usual racism and misogyny, and specific threats to specific people. But those all seem to be OK.

But let's get back to my neighbor. I don't even know who he is, but I have this neighbor a couple houses away who has a cannon he sets off around Independence Day ... or whenever the Seattle Seahawks win a football game, or at 2am, or whenever he damn well feels like it. There'll be the usual neighborhood near-silence and then ka-BOOOOOOM! This is what led me to say I'd like to launch him out of his own cannon. And that's what FB banned me for.

A couple years ago, back when we had a dog, the fireworks around July 4th used to send our dog to hide in the bedroom closet. And the sound of the cannon made him start shaking. I saw that shaking lead to convulsions. Foaming at the mouth, eyes rolled back in the head, the whole bit.

And our dog was scared of nothing else.

But that's OK FB, keep patrolling your pages and making the world safe by shutting up people who dare to say that things aren't all hunky-dory with their neighbors. I get that I was banned because I (jokingly) made a specific (joking) threat of (technically impossible) bodily harm against somebody. Even if I don't know specifically who it is.

But I was joking. And Facebook's bots don't get that. They have no concept of "context." They can't tell if someone's joking.

I'll be OK without FB for 24 hours. But I'm sure the QAnon folks and the vaccine deniers and the "election was stolen!" people will be allowed to continue peddling their BS -- along with the racists and fascists and women-haters and gun-rubbers. Really an ugly bunch to be hanging out with, to be honest.

I get why FB doesn't like talk of violence, especially these days. But I was just joking. I wasn't really gonna launch my neighbor out of his cannon. I'd never be able to squeeze him into it, for starters. I never meant ... aw, forget it.

There is one upside. My getting banned at FB forced me to write my first post here in eight months. So that's got to be a good thing.

Hoping you are the same....