FLOTSAM & JETSAM: Progressive Review censored by Facebook

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Progressive Review censored by Facebook

A reader writes that he tried to to share three different stories from the Review site on Facebook and what came up was this:

"Message Failed. This message contains blocked content that has previously been flagged as abusive or spammy. Let us know if you think this is an error."

This doesn't surprise us. Facebook is the anti-Internet. It is a gated community designed to protect its residents from the incredible variety of  the real Internet. Its guard house is there not to block undesired people, but unwanted information.


In the early days, people had to use corporate sites such as AOL to tap into the Internet. Of course, these sites controlled what you could see or visit. Then came the free and open web and a huge increase in the information available to the average viewer.


Facebook is an attempt to revive corporate control of the Internet, by fooling people into thinking they can get all they want from its links. Of course, one of the prices you pay for this is that a guy named Zuckenberg gets to decide what you see, a guy who thinks the Progressive Review is too dangerous to read.