Sent to Time-Out

    I’ve been at this now going on 8 to 9 months and having a blast, posted 55 little stories with close to 3,300 page views and the audience is from every corner of the earth.  I’ve never held back on speaking my mind.  My wife half jokingly has said the “FBI’s going to show up on our porch one of these days.”  I never considered that to be a real threat, if they want to censor someone there are bigger fish out there than me.  Little did I know the web (or parts of it) is censoring the users all on its own. 

    Like most people my age I had a front row seat to watch the birth of the internet (both military and civilian sides).  I can’t even remember the first time I logged onto a web site but I managed to adapt to it.  Then came the e-mail account (now I’ve got 5, active). Followed by joining a few groups (now I’m a member of 40 to 50, mostly news outlets).  Then came E-bay, I really loved it when it was people instead of cookie cutter store fronts (with all the same stuff at the same price).  Toss in some retail merchant sites and various other sites.  Of course THE TOMCAT BLOG and Twitter. I think my plate is full.  So I never got into Face Book, but my wife did so I just kind of look over her shoulder now and again.  I’ve liked the results from Face Book, when one of my stories is shared on it I’ll see 20 or 30 hits within an hour or so (same with twitter).  I kind of figured Face book was a quicker but shorter version of a blog or a bigger/slower version of twitter.  Just didn’t peak my interest.  Come to find out I would most likely not be all that welcome in the Face Book world at lest not by its management.

On Saturday following the news that backup had been denied to the men fighting for their lives in Benghazi Libya, Special Operations Speaks PAC (SOS) posted a photo on Face Book criticizing Obama’s decision to let the Americans in Benghazi stand alone.  Within 24 hours (after a few hundred thousand views) Face Book sent out this warning:

The picture was re-posted (with the warning) and again within 7 hours the operators of Face Book removed the picture and suspended the SOS page for 24 hours (they sent the SEAL’s to TIME-OUT). 

    Yes their needs to be monitoring of the Face Book world, there have been too many sad stories of cyber bullying of children and others but this ventures into censorship of political speech.  The free and robust exchange of ideas, opinions and dissenting views is what America was founded upon.  During these times of politicians bent on misinformation and mainstream news outlets that have become nothing more than an outlet for the politician’s talking-points, social networks like Face Book should embrace their position of being the only haven for those willing to speak out, a haven for those who will call politicians on their missteps and over-reaches.  After all what good is a social media if you have to hide your true feelings and opinions?  Maybe they would like to post our updates for us to read so we know what our opinions should be…

If this get’s my wife sent to Face Book TIME-OUT my weekend’s going to suck.

The TOMCAT           

 What is SOS? Former Special Ops officers from four separate branches of the military have joined ranks for one specific purpose – to remove Barack Obama from office. 

For more information on Special Operations Speaks visit

http://specialoperationsspeaks.com/index

On Oct 31 Face Book relented and allowed the photo to stand. (They couldn’t stand the heat… Liberals…)