On 20 August 1944, Count Schwerin von Schwanenberg was brought before the Nazi ‘People’s Court’, charged with treason. He was unshaven and wore no tie. Prominent in the July plot against the Nazi regime, he knew he was about to hang.
When Nazi judge Roland Freisler angled for an apology, Schwerin would not be cowed, but spoke out about the ‘many murders’ of the Nazi regime ‘at home and abroad’ – drawing Freisler’s apoplectic ire. Hoping they would obtain useful propaganda footage, the Nazis filmed this exchange, and the film has survived – a powerful example of a person speaking truth to power.
I posted this clip on Facebook, with some background information, as part of a regular series of posts promoting my book Treason, which recounts the German resistance to Hitler.
I have posted the clip a few times before.
This time I received a notification from Facebook that my post was blocked, because it violated Facebook’s community standards.
I was plunged into the Kafkaesque realm of Facebook’s processes.
The notification stated ‘this is because you previously posted material that violated Facebook’s community standards’. The previous week, Facebook had notified me of such a breach, but when I asked for a review, they overturned this and apologised for getting it wrong. According to Facebook’s retraction, there was no previous breach. But there was no way for me to point out this mistake to Facebook.
The notification set out Facebook’s standards – all laudable – but did not say which standard was breached, nor how.
Despite failing to specify what was wrong, Facebook required me to select from a menu my reason for saying that the post should not be blocked. This is like someone on trial being told to defend themselves when they are not told the charge.
Despite this absurdity, I asked for a review and marked the option ‘The post does not violate Facebook’s community standards’.
Facebook then advised that they try to have a person review the decision, but could not guarantee this, because of staff shortages due to Covid.
Really? There are plenty of people they could hire to do this task, even during Covid. It’s a task that could readily be performed online. The excuse was specious.
Having asked for a review, I received a prompt response. Facebook had reviewed the post (evidently by its algorithms, not by a person, who would scarcely have had time to watch the video clip and read the post). Facebook stated that they had reviewed the post and confirmed that the post violated Facebook’s community standards. Again, they did not say why.
One thing is clear: Facebook’s algorithms are incapable of distinguishing an anti-Nazi post from a Nazi post.
Facebook then asked me whether the communication from them had been helpful. When I marked that it had not, they thanked me and said they used responses to improve their service.
Facebook notified me that there was a right of appeal to Facebook’s ‘Oversight Board’.
This ‘right’ of appeal is illusory. According to Facebook’s own figures, in 2021, the Oversight Board received over a million appeals, but the Board published just 17 decisions, overturning Facebook 11 times. Opting for an appeal was like buying a lottery ticket.
Even though a waste of time in terms of reversing the decision, I decided to lodge an appeal anyway. When I tried to click on the link, nothing happened – just the wheel of death as the attempt to log in timed out. I did this several times. Even getting to the Oversight Board was blocked.
This was not the first time I’ve had trouble with Facebook’s ‘standards’, with the same opaque processes.
Over several years I built up an earlier page promoting my book. I paid Facebook money to promote it, and the page grew to have over 11,000 followers. Then Facebook closed it down (and the linked Instagram feed), without any recourse, saying it violated their community standards, and again failing to say which standards, or how it breached them. Just before publication of my book, I lost all the investment of time and money made in building up this following.
As I emailed Facebook (of course, there was no reply) the page
did not violate Facebook’s published community standards. Nor does it violate community standards as any reasonable person would understand them. The content, dealing with the bravery of those who stood up to the Nazi regime, usually at the cost of their lives, is entirely in accordance with the highest community standards.
It is important that the events of the Nazi regime, the mass murders which have given us the terms ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’, are widely discussed and known. The efforts of those who struggled against that regime should also be part of our shared discourse.
I can’t speak truth to Facebook, because they are not listening. Bizarrely, the business takes a perverse pride in its refusal to support its customers. Who knows how Facebook’s processes are intended to work – but it is clear that this platform is not a safe place to invest. It is only capable of dumbing down our shared discourse and, as a result, diminishing our community.
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