A friend of mine posted this on Facebook this morning:
“On my opening screen, Facebook informs me that they have removed one of my posts because it was "against their community standards". It is no good telling me that if they don't also let me know which post it was that caused offense!
Oh. Found this (but I still have no idea what it referred to):
"We removed your content
Why this happened
It looks like you shared symbols, praise or support of people and organizations we define as dangerous, or followed them.
We can't show this content
Your content goes against our Community Standards on dangerous individuals and organizations."”
As she posts a lot of stuff, it’s not surprising that she doesn’t remember what it is that they have removed. It was undoubtedly something very liberal, demanding justice and tolerance for all but possibly just too pro-Palestine to be totally acceptable. But she’s not an extremist and certainly not a terrorist.
In recent years we have become a very proscriptive society: people are “cancelled”, posts and tweets are deleted. Suella Braverman wanted waving the Palestinian flag to be considered a criminal act, as well as using the words “from the river to the sea”, with our without references to Palestine being set free. Words and symbols!
The Irish Taoiseach was criticised for describing a child hostage returned to Israel as having been “lost” and then “found”. He clearly should have said ”kidnapped” and then “released”. But his words were part of a moving expression of thankfulness, echoing the words of “Amazing Grace”:
Amazing grace, How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
Not just a pop song but in fact a hym written in the late 18th century by John Newton. That first verse can be traced to the parable of the prodigal son in Gospel of Luke. So the ”lost and found” reference is biblical but, of course, it’s the wrong bit of the bible, coming from the New Testament. Oh, dear!
It’s probably a good job that Woody Guthrie wrote his song “This land is your land and this land is my land” about the USA or it too might be banned. So indeed, if they were newly written today, might be any number of songs by the likes of Bob Dylan and John Lennon. (Imagine all the people living life in peace - the very idea! )
Incidentally few people know that Guthrie apparently intended his song to serve as a Marxist corrective to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America,” and although biographer Joe Klein, Harold Leventhal, and Arlo Guthrie have publicized the fact since 1980, the song is so widely known and so widely sung that their efforts have had little impact on public perceptions of it. As for me, I first heard it when I was about twelve, sung by Hayley Mills in the film “Pollyanna”.
So it goes.
And here are a couple of cartoons to make us think:-
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment