Facebook & Arbitrary Power

"Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many - they are few."

Facebook has just proved itself to be an idiot again - or rather its algorithms have proved idiotic. Its guidelines on 'nudity' (a particular cultural neurosis emanating from the dark recesses of American disgust with the otherwise perfectly natural human body) are actually crystal clear that if an 'artist' paints a nude, then it is somehow just dandy.

This is, of course,  a concession to the nonsensical idea that, for some romantic reason, artists can represent safely what is not permitted in the real world. However, those are the guidelines - no nudity (except for a political concession to breast feeding mothers) unless it is art and then it is permitted. Let us be clear - if it is an artistic representation, it is expressly permitted.

In this particular case, I posted, in a Closed Group dedicated to art and with members who are all invited adults, a picture by the mid-level baroque female painter Artemisia Gentileschi, somewhat of a feminist icon. Indeed, I have the cynical notion that Facebook only backed down when I threatened to set the feminists on it for blocking their heroine, one of the few female artists to 'make it' in the seventeenth century - actually a fairly average and over-hyped artist.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, not only did their moronic algorithm not recognise a work of art and blocked it but the operation did something unconscionable - it arbitrarily halted me from posting anything and anywhere for 24 hours. It gets worse by the way, but wait for the end on that one.

My response was immediate, aggressive and utterly contemptuous. They got a message on their help desk every five minutes for two hours pointing out the idiocy of the blocking with a one hour twitter campaign of direct contempt for their inability a) to recognise art and b) to understand their own guidelines as well as an expression through every means of direct anger and outrage that they should arbitrarily block anyone for 24 hours rather than just block something that their idiot algorithm could not recognise as a rather unerotic bit of baroque flummery.

The net result was that the block on my posting was lifted within six rather 24 hours and the picture was restored but my contempt for this arbitrary act and algorithmic stupidity has returned me to my high level of distrust for Facebook that had existed some three or four years ago when they suspended my account without adequate cause and were forced to relent after another time-wasting and determined twitter campaign and complaints to the regulatory authorities in Ireland. At least this time, it was a matter of hours and not months!

But then they blundered again. This time in a way that is almost comical. I made it clear to two Groups that I would no longer be posting on them as a mode of resistance to self censorship but also to preseve rights that now seemed to threaten my right to post in some 15 or so others of an educational nature.

A debate ensued in which a bit of consciousnes was raised about Facebook's arbitrary power and then I commented on another sixteenth century Northern Renaissance nude, posted in the past where others saw 'attachment unavailable'. In other words, Facebook had arbitrarily stopped others from seeing it without giving me fair warning of why this was so. When I commented on it, the result was that the algorithm stupidly marked this art work (well within Facebook's guidelines) as problematic and, yes, in another arbitrary act, banned me from posting for another 24 hours. There is a moron out there, either a programmer or an AI.

Facebook needs to understand that it has every right to set the rules for its platform but there are two things it cannot do. First, it cannot breach its own guidelines - those guidelines give a rather silly priority to art but that commitment to permit art must be met. Second, blocking a picture may be unfortunate and immature but it is permissible within those guidelines. However, it is outrageous that it can behave like a medieval despot and remove posting rights and make threats of loss of account on any basis, let alone a breach of its own guidelines. Body neurosis is tiresome - it shows a weak and decadent culture incapable of standing up for maturity. It also evidences an even more tiresome American cultural imperialism. But this weird thing about Art/Good and Body/Bad remains Facebook's privilege. Arbitrary incompetence or algorithmic malice does not.

What is really disturbing here is something much deeper. Because of its administrative errors, my digital existence is being put at threat because these blunders are inexorably leading to my own digital arbitrary execution.  

The Debate on the Art Group during the brief period when I had access to posting was instructive because Facebook's acts are raising a sort of 'revolutionary consciousness' through its arbitrary acts which have not just affected me. It is a sinister algorithmic attempt at socialisation that is going very badly wrong.

I do not accept defeat but I recognise the reality of power which is that Facebook, if I persist, can remove, in an arbitrary way, my entire six year Facebook ouevre comprising engagement in over 15 groups and with nearly 400 Friends and 160 Followers. In other words, Facebook, like a despotic ancien regime estate, can execute me in the digital world on the whim of one of its own aristocratic algorithms. It is as decadent, corrupt and villainous as any ancien regime. 

So what does a rebel do? He does, as Churchill points out, like any oppressed peasantry take to the hills ... or he engages in guerrilla activity or he emigrates or he gets educated and plots or he engages in a calculated 'dumb insubordination' and 'go slow' or he raises the next generation to understand power and eventually seize it. Or all of those as circumstances dictate. The understanding of power is a fine art - first one must know one's powerlessnes (which few really appreciate) and then one must know the power of the powerless (as Foucault pointed out) in its insidious ability to destroy its oppressor. Eventually conditions change and there is a revolution against arbitrary power.

Every arbitrary act by the ancien regime increases resentment and eventually the heads of the aristocrats roll, eventually humanity will command these AI-driven platforms by revolutionary fiat. I engaged the platform in struggle and temporarily won the 'pay rise' to which I was owed anyway but the power relationship has not changed and the capitalist may still fire me at will when conditions change. He may have put me on a blacklist. Indeed, that is what happened. Within hours of the first suspension, I got 'locked out' again with the suspicion that I am a 'marked man'

I can engage in an idle and short term trades union reformism or I can take the revolutionary route and plan for the long game - the utter overthrow of the arbitrary regime and its replacement by a dictatorship of the subjects! The Art Group remains - it just does not have me posting. It is for others to carry on the revolution in the factory. Better to die on your feet than live in fear on your knees so off to the hills I go with mental kalashnikov in my fist. My investment elsewhere is too valuable in the revolutionary cause and there is nothing they can do about that except 'kill' me. And, if they kill me, others will arise to protest their arbitrary power. My very small amount of power has been redirected with more force. The only thing I can hope is that I have raised the revolutionary consciousness of my own fellow Facebook proletariat.

What is going on here? I think Facebook is running scared of legislation from an equally neurotic government structure and is trying out algorithms that restrict and contain us, all on the spurious grounds of protecting us. The platform is weak and governments are oppressive and, between them, we could be but nuts in their nutcracker. The answer is simple as it is to all arbitrary power - expose it, fight it and apportion blame where it is due: in this case, cowardly and greedy unchecked corporate power and weak and oppressive states. We must never be the nuts ... the nut cracker must be broken, and we should be allowed to grow into great oaks.

Appendix: My Protest At The Second Suspension

To Facebook

I cannot believe your stupidity or is it the stupidity of your algorithms. Yesterday, you suspended me for 24 hours on a seventeenth century artwork which met your guidelines. Six hours later you restored me. I commented on 'old' posting of a sixteenth century artwork (well within your guidelines) this morning and you suspended me again for 24 hours. Now I fear that your algorithms are marking me out for account loss on your idiot mistakes.

This really is not acceptable. I want the painting restored. I want the 24 hour suspension lifted. I want my algorithm corrected to remove all references to these arbitrary actions outside your guidelines.

If this is not done clearly and quickly, I will do the following: I shall write to the regulatory authorities and to my elected representative (who is a member of a minority government putting datas regulation through Parliament); I will produce a blog posting on your failures which I shall circulate widely; and you will have a Twitter reference every ten minutes for as long as it takes.

This is an absolute outrage - two blunders in 24 hours against your own guidelines with arbitrary and unjustified attacks on service provision.

UPDATE

On July 22nd, 2017, I posted a photographic art work in a thread on the photographer Man Ray in the same closed Art Group censored above. In this case, it was borderline because it is moot whether a photograph is art to some people though few actually contest Man Ray's status in this respect and the picture was part of a series, all classically correct, as representative of Man Ray's work including his anodyne but attractive 'Pebbles'.

This particular work was interesting because it was a staged (and very obviously staged) image of 'crime passsionel' which only a moron would not see as expressive and poetic rather than either as a) an incentive to crime or b) some sort of vicious misogyny though, of course, some of the half-educated wallies coming out of the universities nowadays seem unable to draw a mental distinction betwen reality and fantasy which is, I suppose, a sign of the times. If the American President cannot do this, it is probable that his subjects may have difficulty as well.

However, accepting that Facebook are not sophisticated and they have rules, in this case, I am perfectly happy to see the picture removed as borderline since they are clearly trying to protect any one in any sex-negative, body-fearing, unthinking culture to which they want to flog their advertising from having their imagination or brain cells tested very far.

What I do not accept is a) the blocking from posting for 24 hours and b) the bullying threats associated with the blocking. What they should do (as I made clear in my main posting) is remove the picture without threats and advise that this has been done and suggest the possibility of a problem if there is a pattern of such activity within some system of adequate due process. This is what I wrote to them:

"You've done it again .... removed an art work. In this case, a clearly staged photographic art work by the great photographer Man Ray in a thread about Man Ray's work in a closed Group dedicated to Art.

"I have dealt with your censorship behaviours in depth in the past (as above) which I urge you to read with care ....

"In this case, I recognise that it is borderline in terms of the actual posting and that it is reasonable for you to remove the picture in the light of your guidelines - idiotic though the act is in every other respect (the closed and dedicated nature of the Group and its dedication to art amongst consenting adults who do not include primitives).

"However, it is not acceptable to block an individual for 24 hours and offer threats but only to remove the picture and a note to this effect will be added to the posting if posting rights are not restored within one hour.

"I accept that the picture may be removed. I do not accept your arbitrary decision to block posting without due process."

Victimless Crime and the 'Criminal State'

Let us be controversial. The elephant in the room in any consideration of 'victimless crime' (that is, the intrusion of law or regulation into private choices) is the community-state. It is the claims of the community-state that create victims where there are none - or rather it is the claims of those activist minorities who seize control of the institutions of the State, both legislative and executive, that victimise free persons.

The political tragedy is that there is no absolute reason why some alleged victimless crimes should not be the subject of community action (expressed if necessary through an executive State mechanism). We argue for what is permissible later but we have to be clear that liberty is lost through the process of process (a liberal obsession) getting out of control.

The First Category - Absolute Private Rights

We might start by saying that, of the four general areas of victimless (alleged) criminality, one is an absolute - the right of persons to command their own actions, language and words in consensual acts of any nature under conditions of reasonably full information and without creating non-consensual obligations on others (such as, say, clearing away a body in the case of suicide).

The community has no role to play in private consensual transactions under these conditions. Indeed, the State, rather than other persons, has little role in public consensual transactions either. An offence to one person must as much be regarded as an offence to the other if that offensive act is not then permitted. Good manners are not a matter for the State - the private citizen or subject has, as recourse, the right not to associate with the boor.

The rules regulating alleged offensive behaviour are matters that are, first, based on the equality of all persons in regard to comparative 'offensiveness' and, second, a matter of negotiation between persons. Under this approach, it is reasonable to consider it an offence to intrude noise and images (say) on to the personal self and property of a person yet the control of public space, purely understood, is regulated according to reasonable specific harm to all equally and not simply to the harm felt or perceived by one person and not another.

Aesthetic difference or emotional reaction is not sufficient cause for one person to dictate the behaviour, language or thoughts of another. A distinction thus has to be drawn between an act by a person (who is free) and an act directed at a person (which may be oppressive). The intent of the actor, not the presumption of the 'victim', is what counts. For a man to walk down the street naked with an erect willy may be tasteless but it causes no harm. To assertively wave the willy directly in the face of another is the act of a bully and is offensive - but then so is waving a fist or offering a direct insult. It is not beyond the whit of society to make these distinctions.

A test of inappropriate community power is whether it stops one or more persons being who they are in private or in public (like gay kissing or breast feeding) regardless of the aesthetics of others. Appropriate community power stops any person from forcing their aesthetic not on the community but on another person in a targeted way with deliberation or through ignorance. And, of course, before it is raised, a 'strong' view of consent (involving not only adequate information but the ability to comprehend) is accepted. This does not remove all risk from transactions (since risk is what is to be respected here) but it does protect children, animals, the physically and mentally vulnerable and workers in the work place from abuse because of the power relations involved.

But, again, matters should be appropriate. Sexual harassment of a worker is bullying but sexual conduct between workers is no one's business but that of the workers themselves if it does not breach contractual duties that relate solely to the job in hand. Similarly, the private right to erotic pain is a private right about which the community has nothing to say. Opinions should be free, no matter how 'hurtful' or aesthetically troubling, they are. To be contemptuous of a belief in God or even insanely to believe in conspiracy theory is a private matter. Above all, persons who are adult must be reasonably assumed to have rights to personhood that rise above imposed community norms.

The Nordic laws (Sweden, Norway, Iceland) criminalising adult males for undertaking an economic transaction with a woman for sexual pleasure represent the highest form of cultural oppression: acts of totalitarian war on the choices of both parties where both parties are engaged in a consensual act. These have become oppressive states. Religious insult as a crime must be restricted to going into a Church and asserting contempt or to desecrating Jewish graves and such like acts against individual persons or on communities on their own territory - and they should represent a civil action supported by the state and not a state action alone.

The Second Category - Regulating Harm

The second level of community intervention is where the executive intrudes to stop a person harming themselves. The issue here is the line between acting against a temporary aberration or weak information and oppressively failing to permit persons to make personal developmental choices that might incur risk or danger. This is the 'killing ground' (literally) of the political struggle between 'progressives' and 'libertarians' with the latter being excessively principled in terms of absolutes because the former have engaged in a determined 'mission creep' that extends community control not only over acts but language and thoughts in a wholly unprincipled way.

Drugs and assisted suicide are the obvious knotty issues here but also sex work and gambling. The 'progressive' mentality is piling up spending on industries whose purpose is to save people from themselves in an oppressive and infantilising way. The low point was not just Nordic Fascism but arresting BDSM consensual sado-masochists. Above all, there is no logic to solutions which are oppressive in one nation and free in another. The Nordics have become insanely intrusive into sexual matters while the Americans have an irrational 'thing' about gambling that is incomprehensible to the Chinese. Anglo-Saxons obsess about drugs, the Dutch are more relaxed.

The common sense approach - to reduce expenditure and close down self-sustaining special interest groups as well as restore private freedoms - is to permit in general and regulate in particular, with an emphasis on controlling the conduct of suppliers of services, providing full information and developing escape mechanisms paid for out of taxes raised. So, prostitution, gambling and assisted suicide in extremis might be legalised, regulated to a reasonable degree and (except obviously in the case of assisted suicide) taxed, but the 'consumer' and the 'worker' protected, much as they should be (often inadequately in practice) within the financial services or retail sectors, on these principles:-

• 'silent harm' (that is, harm arising out of lack of information) should be reduced or eliminated: this would require industry-funded information on real risk in gambling or duties of care on disease transmission in sex work or the offer of counseling and mental health treatment (even drugs like LSD) as alternatives to suicide in terminally ill patients
• the community state (financed through taxes) should be engaged in general economic equality strategies for women, provide but not enforce skills training to give choice, consider legally enforceable limits (cooling off periods) on decisions to bet high sums or escrow funds for gambling amongst low income earners and so on.

Instead of 'banning' pleasure or risk or 'fundamental choice' trades, the community-state should permit private choice and transaction but force upon producers certain duties of care towards consumers and contracted workers which might include a degree of 'cooling off' on 'major' transactions (betting large sums or death) and should fund alternatives. The cost of 'funding alternatives' is almost certainly going to be less than funding massive security and punishment systems promoted by special interests.

The Third Category - Systems Management

The third category of alleged victimless crime is one that irritates many economic libertarians but it has validity on the basis that it applies where a person is not engaged in private acts but is integrated into a system that has social consequences. The demand for car insurance is an example of this. The free person might object to paying for this, especially if they believe they will never use it but this misses the point, which is that the person is not a free agent in a car but a user of a system that is integrated with other users.

Systems regulation to mitigate harm based on the users' actions en masse is perfectly reasonable but only with two assumptions in mind - that a person can, if they so chose, albeit with inconvenience, opt out of the system (in this case, by not driving on the roads) and that the regulation is proportionate and geared to the facts of the case. The recent EU Court ruling that equalised male and female costs in insurance arrangements is a typical progressive oppression because it shifts the car insurance system from a self-regulating system to an arm of community policy engineered by activists to meet strategic communitarian aims. It is typical of the new European bureaucracy.

However, mandating seat belts and banning the use of mobile phones while driving are permissible restrictions on liberty because the cost to the system as a whole and the potential harm to non-consenting others (including trauma and cost of accidents) makes the point unarguable that action should be taken. As soon as a self-regulating system, usually linked to a technological solution to a human need (such as transport or food or water supply) moves from these two ground rules - the ability to opt out and the necessity to remain proportionate – it shifts from legitimate regulation to our fourth zone of interest, 'government'.

To recapitulate, private lives are not the business of the State, private vices require some degree of regulation as trades in the general public interest and public systems supplying services require a degree of proportionate regulation in order to ensure their proper functioning. But what of government and, indeed, of other non-human entities with claims?

The Fourth Category - The People as Victims of the Criminal State

Government executes a legislative power that might reasonably regulate both 'emotional trades' and complex industrial and post-industrial systems. Government also has certain macro-regulatory functions - which include economic stability, defence of the nation and, more controversially, social order. Crimes against the State are the most difficult of all 'victimless crimes' because the State is a thing-in-itself that claims to represent us as persons but which, in fact, is a bureaucratic self-perpetuating machine that represents only those persons who have seized the levers of power, usually through somewhat spuriously democratic means.

The State is not a moral actor but is merely the vehicle for appropriate conduct (the preservation of order and economic stability to enable private life and the permitted regulatory functions in a complex post-industrial society) by an organisation whose entire claim to rule is ultimately based on the simple expedient of having a monopoly of force. What do we mean by this? Only that the current constitutional liberal democratic State may do all these 'good' things but it is also empowered to do many 'bad' things under the behest not of private persons working in concert within agreed rules about freedom and responsibility but under the behest of those who have seized control of its powers.

• The State has a professional political class that has no direct link to private persons acting in concert but is entirely beholden to a party structure based on clientage and the influence of special interests.
• The State has a bureaucratic class that not only has no accountable and direct or indirect link to private persons acting in concert but represents an institutional interest protective of its own status and privileges.
• The State is surrounded by a parasitical class of representatives of competing special interests who, at their best, improve appropriate regulation but which, at their worst, divert appropriate regulation from the needs of the system or from the consumer or worker in order to strengthen their own financial and ideological interests.

The institutional interest of the State as represented by political, bureaucratic and lobbyist (not excluding countervailing NGO) vested interests creates a profound alienation between the population and its ruling elite who cannot guarantee freedom, who are tempted to interfere in private life and who are incompetent at appropriate regulation. This combination of interests, essential to the self definition of modern liberalism and progressivism and represented by the behemoths of the European Union, the Federal Government in Washington and all democratic capitals, is thus part public service and part criminal racket, designed to divert public funds into the pockets of special interests.

If this is all it is, perhaps we could live with it, but this unholy trinity of politicians, bureaucrats and vested interests brings with it an ideological package that operates against the public interest by using the State as the means to impose their particular vision of what it is to be human. The politicians will not challenge standard cultural norms as fearful electoral conservatives. The 'emotional trades' cannot be regulated properly. Activist groups enter into the political and bureaucratic process and force minor oppressions and major costs on the population. Business perverts the smooth-running of the market at consumer and worker expense.

The victim here is the public. The meaning of criminality has been reversed so that crimes against the State become 'bad' and crimes against persons or the people go unpunished. Petty wars are declared at huge public cost, non-jobs are created that assist the few at the expense of the many and individuals are persecuted by the police to please their security and populist allies. Until we, as a people, understand that we are the victims of this three-fold class of interests and restructure our political decision-making to make our representatives and bureaucrats more directly accountable and activists and lobbyists much more transparent, we will continue to be victims of organised state crime, mostly (admittedly) petty but quite capable of both expropriation and, in war time, enslavement.