It’s Not You — It’s Me

Summary

The author, a former text miner, has encountered restrictions on Facebook for sharing links to Medium articles, suggesting a rivalry between the platforms and questioning Facebook's community standards enforcement.

Abstract

The author, reflecting on their experience as a text miner, admits to enjoying writing on Medium more than engaging with Facebook's content. They describe Medium as a platform reminiscent of the early days of blogging, where discussions were genuine and free from the manipulative algorithms of social media giants. After sharing this sentiment on Facebook, the author noticed their posts were being flagged or restricted, despite not being banned from the platform. This has led to speculation that Facebook is actively limiting content from Medium, possibly due to jealousy or a desire to maintain its user engagement without competition. The author invites others to share their theories on why Facebook might be restricting Medium links.

Opinions

The author believes that Medium offers a more authentic and engaging writing and reading experience compared to Facebook.
They suggest that Facebook's enforcement of "community standards" may be overly strict or inconsistent, particularly when it comes to sharing content from rival platforms like Medium.
The author implies that Facebook is acting out of jealousy or fear of competition, as it cannot tolerate users' preference for another platform.
They mock Facebook's aggressive stance by referring to it as "Faceber" and suggesting it is behaving like a deity demanding exclusivity from its users.
The author is critical of Facebook's use of AI bots for content moderation, implying that the system is flawed and overly restrictive.
They encourage a sense of community among writers and readers who are affected by Facebook's policies, inviting them to share their experiences and theories.

I’m the reason you can’t share your links on Facebook

As a former hard-hat text miner, I should have known better. Hell, I did know better. I threw all caution to the wind and admitted, on Facebook, that I was having a whole lot more fun writing on Medium than endlessly doomscrolling on Facebook. I wrote about how Medium seemed like a throwback to the good ol’ days, back when blogging — also known as “writing shit online” — was fun, lighthearted, and more importantly, sociable. Not just “social media” but a place where thinkers, writers and readers, could hang out over the back fence and gab about the topics that mattered to them, without the manipulation and political machinations of an evil empire of AI bots posing as moderators and enforcers of a muddy concept called “community standards.”

I should never have said the quiet parts out loud.

I thought it might be okay — I mean, I was not kicked off Faceberg (I mean, “Facebook”), but rather started seeing weird reprimands like this one:

Screen Capture by Author

So, you can see — if you squint really hard — that I was attempting to share a Friend link to this post:

I know that some of ILLUMINATION’s detractors are rubbing their hands together, slobbering all over their keyboards with glee, but it’s not just ILLUMINATION — I’m hearing grumblings from the owners of many publications, and now individuals attempting to post things from their own profiles — things that don’t exist in any of Medium’s “publications” — and there are a billion wild theories as to why Faceberg (sorry, I mean “Facebook”) is now slapping them with the dreaded “this content goes against our Community standards on spam” warning. Some of them are incredibly fun, but here’s mine:

Faceberg is jealous.

Faceberg tolerates no rivals for its love. Ev Williams has made a thing — and while Faceber — Facebook — may have ignored it in the past, they are now in full-on God mode: “Thou shalt have no other platforms before me!”

Yeah, well, writers aren’t usually big on idolatry.

Their loss, not ours.

Feel free to post links to your own wild Facebook Medium Link Ban theories in the comments, here!

Satire | Humor

It’s Not You — It’s Me

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