Anybody remember the Fagbug in our area – the Volkswagen Beetle that was spraypainted with gay slurs, just because the car’s owner, Erin Davies, dared to have a rainbow sticker applied to her car’s rear window?
You remember the story – Erin turned the vandalism into an opportunity to teach people about gender equality and hate speech. She christened her vandalized car the “Fagbug,” made a documentary about the vehicle, and set up a Facebook page for it. And over the span of four years, she achieved 10,000 “like” votes on the social media page.
I previously wrote about Erin’s car and her other projects of conscience in this blog post.
On Tuesday, Erin checked on the Facebook status page for Fagbug – only to discover that the page wasn’t there. Instead, Erin saw a message from Facebook that read: “We removed the following content you posted or were the admin of because it violates Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities…”
Huh?
What statement of rights and responsibilities did she violate? The girl had her car vandalized by some punk, who spray-painted “UR GAY” and “FAG” on her car windows. And this was on the national Day of Silence, if I remember correctly. And she decided to turn that moment of ugliness and make it a moment of teaching. In all honesty, that car belongs at the Henry Ford Museum alongside the transit bus Rosa Parks rode, as an example of triumph over bigotry.
I don’t know if Facebook is going to claim this as some sort of technical glitch, or if they suddenly got freaked because some administrator saw the word “fag” next to the word “bug.” But the fact is, whether this is an electronic glitch or a brain glitch, this either needs to be corrected right now by Facebook – or by us.
Here’s the link to the Fagbug page. Oh wait. That link doesn’t work any more.
Because on Wednesday night, Facebook completely deleted the Fagbug page. All the data, all the information, all the photographs of notes that were left on the windshield of the Fagbug – whether in support or in defamation – disappeared into the electronic ether.
Absolutely beyond belief. Totally uncalled for. I’m not a defender or a critic of Facebook, that’s for other people. But in this case, Facebook screwed up big time. What happened, FB? Did someone get all upset because there’s a Facebook page with the word “Fagbug” on it, and they automatically flagged the page as offensive, and once Facebook sees something that their community has determined is offensive, they shut it down?
Really?
No, really… Really?
This was a page that had 10,000 “likes” on it. Now it has one “dislike” on it – a dislike caused by some overzealous Facebook employee. She originally had 10,000 “likes” before Facebook took down the page.
I certainly hope that Facebook does the right thing, restores Erin’s page to the FB community, and never takes that page down ever again.
Who’s with me on this?
UPDATE – looks like the Fagbug page is back up and running, although it’s missing all the 10,000 “like” votes. Nice to see that Facebook finally did the right thing. So let’s get this page up to 20,000 “like” votes. Who’s with me on this?
Chuck The Writer 
And yet, Facebook allows a user name called “F***tard” (with the “uck” spelled out)….
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Facebook has transformed itself into the ANTI social network. The computer program that governs its policy will not allow me to make my profile name “Rocky Hardcore”. I am currently blocked from sending friend requests for 30 days for attempting to add people I have met in my travels or other people in my profession. I have been accused of being a spammer, and forced to verify my identity via a code I received in a text, even to be able to log into my account, as if the media stories on my page didn’t pretty much sum up I was the real deal. Now just like the format change that virtually wiped out the popularity of myspace I now have this new timeline format. I can live with that, it continues to show what I post. A lot of what I post are very unique, one of a kind stunt photos which I share with stuntmen aruond the world. In order to share the photos videos or comments I have to add them as a friend. While serving my penalty I am aware that continued behavior in the future, will be sanctions from facebook that fly in the face of the constitution itself. Violate the friend request policy in either of two ways, by sending too many friend requests (the violation is explained as having sent out too many unanswered friend requests) or if the recipient of your requests clicks on ” I don’t know this user, cancel the request”. Should you currently violate the friend request policy and get a suspension, you are unable to send messages to non friends. If you continue to violate this policy the sanctions from facebook block you from sending messages, block you from being able to comment on your friends wall or posts, or even like a post or a photo, no pokes, nothing, nada, zip. The only way you can converse with someone is if they happen to be on chat. The photo did not violate facebooks policy, the page did not violate facebooks policy, what got the profile deleted was the fact that it only took 1 pinhead to register a complaint about the page and poof it was gone. The social network is only social if you don’t express an opinion or if you try to share part of your life and accomplishments with others.
If you doubt what I say, put it to the test, go to your home page and send a request every profile in the category “people you may know”. After a few you will get a pop up that asks “do you know this person?”, a few more and a pop up will tell you that the request can’t be sent. Send one more and you get the page that informs you that you must log in to continue. Once you log in, you will be asked to either verify your identity or be informed that you are in violation of facebook policy and that your privileges have been suspended. Not being able to respond messages for up to 30 days does not fit my criteria as a “social network”, and continued violations of policy will also cause my account to be deleted. My complaints to facebook have fallen on deaf ears, the complaint form stated that due to the volume of complaints,all could not be reviewed or dealt with. Logic tells me that if they don’t have the capacity for this function, then they don’t have the capacity to handle the volume of friends requests. Their solution to this is to impose sanctions on its users. These sanctions constitute a 100% block of communication, except the ability to post comments on your own wall or communicate in chat(im)IF they are logged on. I can’t give Zuckerberg my opinion, I’m blocked and hes not in my friends list. Some of my friends are blocked from responding to my messages comments or photos,how is that in anyway social and am I the only one who feels that this form of sanctioning borders on being illegal? I’m sorry, convicted felons on death row are not denied the privilege of responding to their mail, why would facebook put its users lower on the food chain?
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Didn’t it come out that she vandalized her own car? Or is that someone else I’m think of – could that be the reason they deleted the account?
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You make very good points, here are some others to ponder.
Did she pay for a private Facebook account, or did she keep a free page dedicated to her Bug through a public website which is known to change settings and allowable content on the switch of a dime? Was she still generating a lot of traffic to her site? Has the removal of her page caused any lasting harm or inhibited her ability to generate income? Is she unable to use another website to promote her agenda of peace and tolerance?
I think this is a situation where Erin should shout “Facebook sucks!” like everyone else and use another online outlet to pursue her interests.
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Rocky, they probably won’t let you use that name because you blather on –and on — and on….
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Facebook’s day of reckoning is fast coming. It’s almost completely a photo-sharing site, and not a very good one at that. The “user content” that is non-photo generated content quickly aligns with the 80/20 rule. It’s policies/algorithms, as stated in both the comments and this article as well as elsewhere, are clearly lacking and easily abused.
What’s going to completely bring it down is it’s lack of monetization. Combining that with its lack of historical innovation (when’s the last time they made a change people wanted or enjoyed?) and now public ownership and it’s just a matter of time before it dissolves into a has-been. Someone will usurp them, it’s not a matter of if, but when…
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And this is just one of many reasons why I do not have a facebook account. It’s too bad they took down her page, it just proves that there are more ignorant people out there than some punk with a paint can.
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