Saturday, September 13, 2014

Is Facebook Homophobic?

Facebook, also lovingly known as F*c*book or FuckFace, is a social networking site located in the U.S.A. with 1.28 billion monthly active users worldwide (March 2014).

I have been using FuckFace on and off, both in my first and second lives, for the last four years or so. I have left Facebook voluntarily twice and I have had my account deactivated or disabled six-seven times (I lost count). Twice Facebook has given me a reason for deactivating/disabling my account ("reason to believe that I was not using real name"), but mostly it has been done without any justification given for their action.

During my time on FuckFace I have experienced several pogroms from the company directed against my LGBT friends, but no such actions have ever - to my knowledge - occurred against any of my straight friends. Neither have I ever heard or read of such concerted actions directed against straight SecondLife avatars on the site (with two individual exceptions, Barcelonamaria and Pieni).

If anyone of you reading this have such information, please do enlighten me as I realize that my knowledge is only empirical, limited and may be slanted ("With eyes sensitive to green", as a line in a Swedish song goes, ones perception of the color green is enhanced but other colors may be obscured.)

However, based on my experience, I am prepared to make the charge that FuckFace is homophobic - or at the very least - applying it's rules in a homophobic way. So my answer to the question I posed in the title of this post is: "Fuck yes, definitely!"

Moving on to another of my pet peeves concerning FuckFace, there is the issue of "real identities". The company seems to completely ignore that there many times are valid reasons for someone not to use the name on their drivers licences. These reasons can range from being a victim in an abusive relationship to actually being better known in different times or circles under a "nom de plume" (pen name), alias or artistic name.

During my online existence over the last twenty years I have, besides Bock McMillan, during periods been best known as Markus Bock, LundaMats, WWW, Lunds nästkåtaste karl or 70244 (among others).

I am Bock McMillan and Bock McMillan is I. We are one and inseparable, the only difference is that one is better known in one of my lives, while the other is better know in the other life. It should be my decision which of my names I use and when, not FuckFaces.

3 comments :

  1. I like to call it Failbook, Fakebook or Faceborg. I am Spanki Moulliez everywhere on the net except for that stupid site that made me change my name so that now noone knows who I am.

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  2. Facebook is probably homophobic addition to all other phobias. Facebook's Naked Phobia affects however, women only. Nipples on a man is perfectly legitimate, but when they are sitting on a woman becomes unbearably awful for Facebook's censors. Facebook's regulations strictly follows the American thé party movement's smallest desires. There are even those who have been expelled a month because they used Facebook's own gadget to automatically publish blog posts.
    Regarding real name or not, you are absolutely right. There are several legitimate reasons to use avatar names. One of them are the Swedish constitution, which guarantees absolute anonymity online. What is interesting is that I was suspended from Google+ for that reason, even though I could prove that it lives two named Sjöfn in Kungälvs municipality but Google has backed down and my account is available again.
    If you go on Facebook, you have my full support and a vocal cheerleader. - Everyone should have the same rights regardless of faith, sexual orientation, gender or otherwise is enshrined in the UN Charter of Human Rights. It really is about time that it becomes law online too

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  3. Thanks for your comments Spanki & Sjöfn!

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