The Guardian – Prawn of the Patriarchy

On being booted off Facebook

My Facebook account was locked last Friday. I think it happened because someone reported me to Facebook HQ as being guilty of promulgating hate speech and/or perpetrating other vile lapses of the Facebook Terms of Use.

I’d say it was no coincidence that it occurred the day after I had an encounter with a couple of aggressive/threatening women whilst I was commenting on an article in the Facebook page of The Guardian Australia. (Hi, Louise and Rebecca).

It’s not the first time this has happened to me, and I doubt it will be the last. But for the time being at least, I couldn’t be bothered persisting with Facebook.

I didn’t actually say or do anything hateful on that day, or on any other day. I didn’t upload porno. Or threaten anyone. Or even use profanity (unlike the two women in question). But those that reported me didn’t care about Facebook rules per se. They just wanted to stop me, and people like me, expressing our views online. And they sought to have all trace of that which had already been posted, removed.

You see, all of my posts using that Facebook account concerned gender-related issues. More specifically, my stance generally contrasts with the feminist position, and feminists don’t take kindly to dissenting views.

I could try to contact Facebook HQ (as I have attempted in the past) to discover what was alleged, and to rebut those allegations. But that would be difficult/impossible because whilst Facebook has streamlined the reporting process, they clearly don’t want to get involved in time-consuming dispute resolution. Read about another person’s experience with Facebook here.

Given previous feminist campaigns against Facebook, I suspect that Facebook is as wary of feminists as our politicians appear to be. And of course, those who made the allegations against me know this.

People reading this who have crossed swords with feminists online would be rolling their eyes at this point in time. They would be thinking “well what does this person expect? Everyone knows that feminists do that stuff all the time”.

The thing is though, I don’t think people in the broader community are fully awake to this. Not even those people sympathetic to what they understand to be feminist ideals.

So to those who don’t realise how real-world feminists behave, consider this post your very own ‘heads-up’. For I can assure you that many in the feminist movement make it their mission to consistently and persistently block the dissemination of messages that run contrary to the feminist narrative.

Feminists even discuss ways and means of getting people off-line – refer examples here and here. It’s always phrased in noble terms such as stopping “trolling” “online bullying”, etc. But the truth is that in the hard-done-by & perpetual-victim mindset of the fervent gender feminist, ANY dissent constitutes trolling, no matter how tactfully expressed.

And indeed I have seen this scenario played out more times than I care to remember. This blog post talks more about this issue, and indeed the theme is revisited in several other posts.

The various tactics that feminists utilise to try to deny their perceived enemies a voice, include:

Blocking specific people from posting on pro-feminist Facebook pages
Removing posts from pro-feminist Facebook pages when they disagree with the views being expressed
Blocking specific people from accessing/posting to pro-feminist Twitter accounts
Lodging exaggerated or false reports with Facebook or Twitter in order to have certain peoples’ accounts suspended/closed
Not uploading readers comments to blogs or web sites when they are seen as unsupportive of the feminist position on the matter
Removing readers comments from blogs or web sites (ditto)
Reporting posts to moderators when they are seen as negative towards the feminist position on the matter
Not allowing any readers comments to be posted

What does it say about the credibility of a social movement when its adherents devote so much time and energy to blocking debate and suppressing information, rather that doing the opposite?

The truth is that feminists of this ilk don’t want to engage in debate, and they don’t want to provide a ‘right of reply’ (even after they have attacked a specific organisation or individual). And they certainly don’t want information circulated that provides the contextual background the public needs to properly consider feminist claims/grievances, particularly when it serves as evidence of feminist double-standards or hypocrisy.

Why not? Well in part it’s because this unchecked element of the feminist movement carry such intense feelings of contempt and anger towards those who question their cause. And in part it’s because they realise that their position on many issues simply cannot be supported with facts and logic. Thus they far more to lose from enabling informed debate, than they have to gain.

So they stifle debate, censor, deflect and misrepresent. Because they can. Any way they can. And feel completely justified and exonerated in doing so. Like so many cockroaches scuttling about in dark places.

This is what feminist entitlement looks like.

See also:

Facebook Bans Clementine Ford From Own Account For 30 Days (21 June 2015) Finally some small consolation … a rare treat indeed … a misandrist ratbag has HER account (briefly) suspended

Guess What, Girls? You Don’t Deserve **** (4 May 2014)

Elsewhere in this blog you will find these posts most relevant to this topic:

On the censorship and erasure of non-feminist perspectives and opinions
Beware the ire of an angry feminist
The Unbearable Lameness of Being
Domestic Violence NSW censors dissenting views (before lapsing into paranoid delusion)

The Guardian publishes article about the awfulness of people being silenced online, and then silences me

TL:DR version: I posted perfectly civil comments in relation to pro-feminist article in The Guardian that weren’t fully supportive of the author’s position. The article was about the horribleness of women’s voices being silenced online. TG then:

deleted my comments from their web site
deleted my comments from their Facebook timeline (in relation to post on same article)
placed me on their pre-moderation grey-list (where I remain to this day)

And now in more detail

I recently read and commented upon the following article in the web site of the Australian version of The Guardian: Women are silenced online, just as in real life. It will take more than Twitter to change that (23 April 2015)

I would suggest that you read the article now and then come back for a brief discussion.

I submitted a comment on the article which briefly appeared online only to then be removed without trace. It didn’t even get the usual place-marker of “This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our community standards“. Well, I have read the “standards” and (hand on heart) my comment did not contravene them.

So just how hypocritical is that? Publish an article bemoaning how people are silenced online only to then silence others. Not that The Guardian is any stranger to employing heavy-handed pro-feminist censorship.

Let’s look at a couple of the readers comments that made it through the wringer:

“I dunno. Speaking as a female here, I’ve never had a problem being bullied by the boys online. If we disagree, I can usually deliver a sufficiently ferocious tongue-lashing to make them cringe back in respect. More often, though, we end up flirting through our discussions.

I’ve also had more than one off-putting experience in heavily-moderated forums. While I’m all for civility and respect for fellow-commenters, emotions will rise, taboo words will be used for emphasis, and respecting diversity needs to include accepting that many people don’t share the Official Civilized View on any given issue. There are otherwise intelligent and moral people who have genuine reasons for supporting racist, sexist, and homophobic viewpoints, often backed by science which is at least as solid as that backing the Politically Correct Ideology. And it’s these off-center, alternative, maverick views which offer the most interesting diversity in the marketplace of ideas. Moderating them out of existence because someone will be offended is the worst way to prevent intelligent conversation.

I know I’m not a typical female. But frankly, “typical females” bore me, and I’m afraid that when internet forums are made safe and secure enough for the lame and timorous, it’s the intellectual equivalent of pulling half the water out of a swimming pool so that it’s safe for the little kids. I’m not a little kid anymore, and I don’t swim in the wading pool.” (Cynndara)

Another reader stated:

“Whilst you may have a some of data, on “who” is posting, your analysis is deeply flawed. Let’s start with the click-bait: “Women are silenced online, just as in real life”

The first analysis of your article shows that women are quiet (vs silenced) online and this probably matches offline behaviour. (Yes, in ANY gender balanced group, the loudest are often males… oh goodness… online news matches)

Sadly, this hyperbole characterises much of the rest of your article. Limited data – eg. a paucity of obviously female pseudonyms on some news commenting sites – are extrapolated to such breath taking gender stereotypes as:

Many women are still doing the primary family management and caring roles, so don’t have time.

Yeah, that’s implied by the data isn’t it? Me (a male name) must be hacking out comments whilst my female-type partner (if I have one) would be cleaning the kitchen and caring for the kiddies! Jeez men are slobs.

Of course, matching the template for a standard gender-based argument, the next sentence completely contradicts this:

On the other hand, women are bigger users than men of Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, platforms that offer a public voice in a personally controlled social environment.

Whut!? No time to write, but time for FaceBook… yes, of course… no problem, keep that mud slinging…

And so we move on to “hey, but women don’t post because THEY’RE FRIGHTENED!!” (ie. women are abused)

Yes, people – and probably more women – are abused online. although seriously, the “article” that you use to support this – 100,000 tweets mentioning rape – hardly merits mention on scientific grounds, let alone relevance for news-based blogs.

Then we go beyond mere hyperbolic extrapolation of limited data, to explaining the whole news-blog world should be reformed in the image of a single web site, because

moderators silently delete, block and ban rather than facilitate conversation, and journalists don’t take part.

Wrong! Sorry, but even here, on the Guardian, where you’re making this claim article authors DO sometimes contribute. In fact (in my anecdotal experience) the most common authors who respond are those with female-like names! And the Guardian already gives the ability to “up vote” (but not good enough, because they don’t throw in a buzz word like respect…)

Moreover, it is best practice to remove (without trace) reported comments. It does not improve the conversation to tolerate/facilitate trolls.

Here’s a thought: stick to what you can argue from the data, and don’t use a sample to help drive your own barrow. For future research you might consider:
1/ IS there ANY relation to female/male roles on the posting of news items — eg. why is it that most Guardian posts are NOT during evening times and other “males do nothing in the home” time periods, but rather, during normal office hours?

2/ MAYBE (just maybe) women AREN’T INTERESTED on commenting on the news and opinions of random strangers. I’m taking a sample size of one here, in that I actually asked an actual female, rather than impying gender from anonymous poster names, but I say that’s one more than you’ve done.

It could be shocking to internet-gender researchers, but a LOT of people could not care less about commenting into the void, and many females (at least that I talk to) find it quite funny that so many men do so: no-one is hiding 19th century style, they just have whole lives to lead.

3/ TOP posters are irrelevant. They are just loud. Look for meaningful attributions, such as “who becomes a Guardian featured poster” OR “who gets lots of replies”

4/ Keep your abuse tags to where they are relevant. Yes, on Twitter there is a surfeit of abusive idiots. Here, less so. As a male-pseudonym, I get ‘abused’ 2 posts out of 5 or so. Of the most critical, I’d say 50% are female pseudonyms. Why not actually look at (on this site)
(i) the type of articles that attract abusers (I can give you some guesses)
(ii) the type of post that attracts abusers
(iii) the “gender” of abusers.

5/ How many female authors have posted, but then stopped. Preferably with correlation against abusive responses.

At that point, please, feel free to extrapolate.” (Stephen Weaven)

I also subsequently posted a comment on the Facebook entry for this story, which can be found here. That entry is no longer visible in the Guardian’s Facebook timeline, having been removed soon after I posted my comment (shown below). Was this a coincidence? Perhaps, but probably unlikely given that other stories uploaded the same day are still visible.

Below again you can see another person’s comment taken from the Facebook entry for the article. This is one that perfectly typifies the entitled feminist mentality that anyone not fully supportive of the feminist position is a “male troll” whose views are unworthy of publication. On the other hand, feminists who “challenge too directly” are victimised when their posts are deleted.

Going Batty: The making of a champion of the domestic violence industry

I have absolutely nothing personal against Rosie Batty, and in fact as a parent myself I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone who has lost a child under such horrific circumstances. Her tragic loss has provided her with a unique and potentially valuable insight, but it does not qualify her to direct public policy on dealing with domestic violence in the community. She is but one person affected by a scourge that has affected thousands of Australians.

This is a complex topic and we need to hear about, and be open to, the experiences and opinions of many others. We should also ensure that we consider different theoretical/ideological perspectives and not, as is done now, exclude serious consideration of all but one approach (feminism/Duluth Model).

Rosie has transformed herself and/or allowed herself to be transformed, into a veritable battering ram for the domestic violence industry. Feminist advocates and their allies in the media and political sphere have, like so many roman centurions, arranged themselves around her and are pressing her forward. Broader political events here in Australia have added further momentum as politicians look about for suitable populist issues with which to score cheap points and/or divert attention from other matters. This is patently obvious in Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull’s adoption of DV as one of his personal cause celebre.

This focussing of attention could have been a great thing in terms of getting decisive action on the issue of family violence and related issues like child abuse and elder abuse. But it won’t be. It won’t be because the whole episode is being choreographed by the archly-feminist domestic violence industry.

As a result all we will get is more of the same old failed and shockingly biased resourcing decisions and ‘initiatives’:

The continued turning-the-other-way when it comes to supporting male victims of DV and their children
The continued turning-the-other-way in relation the incidence of violent behaviour by women
The continued insistence that both the problem and its solution rests entirely in the hands of men
The continued emphasis on the discredited ‘Duluth model‘ of theorising domestic violence
The continued pouring of millions of dollars of public funds towards feminist consultants and advocacy groups
The creation of yet more consultative groups and the convening of more inquiries/royal commissions.

None of which have been proven to have any significant effect on reducing actual rates of perpetration and/or re-offending

And thus now we are witnessing a competition amongst state and federal politicians as to who cares the most about domestic violence, with ‘care’ manifesting itself through hideously costly inquiries and hand-outs to advocacy groups.

Here is a timeline of events:

Father who killed son, Luke Batty, at cricket ground had history of mental illness, says boy’s anguished mother (14 February 2014)

Luke Batty’s grieving mother speaks out on family violence (19 February 2014)

“The mother of Luke Batty says Australians need to have a greater understanding of family violence. Rosie Batty has also urged men to address the problem, in a long and emotional interview less than a week after her 11-year-old son was killed by his father at a Victorian cricket ground.”

Rosie Batty blasts Studio 10 host Joe Hildebrand on morning TV (2 April 2014)

Rosie Batty storms out of her murdered son’s inquest, almost in tears (23 October 2014)

It’s a disgrace some want Rosie to share the blame (23 October 2014)

Rosie Batty appointed ‘Australian of the Year’ (25 January 2015)

Rosie Batty’s speech after becoming 2015 Australian of the Year (25 January 2015)

Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten seized the opportunity of Rosie’s appointment to climb higher upon the feminist bandwagon by calling for a federal Royal Commission on domestic violence. Someone should remind him that a federal inquiry is already underway and is due to report in March 2015.

Predictably the media then went to the Government to ask them whether they would support a national Royal Commission. Thank goodness that the Government stood its ground against this misguided proposal – at least thus far – although they did make other concessions.

Domestic violence funding in NSW: Rosie Batty as Australian of the Year raises profile of state ‘epidemic’ (26 January 2015)

Rosie Batty, Australian of the Year, will save lives of family violence victims, former police commissioner Ken Lay says (26 January 2015)

Ken Lay is one of the most well-recognised ‘white knights‘ on behalf of the Australian feminist movement, known for his frequent use of the incorrect statement that the “overwhelming majority” of domestic violence was perpetrated by men upon women.

Rosie Batty: I’d like to see a government campaign to stop domestic violence (27 January 2015)

Rosie Batty and Ken Lay appointed to new domestic violence advisory panel (28 January 2015)

I posted a quite cordial comment in response to this article but gee whiz, look what happened:

This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.

Imagine that, a pro-feminist news source (The Guardian) censoring a (polite and non-threatening) dissenting viewpoint. Seriously now, this happens so often that I really must get into the habit of creating screen-saves each time I post a comment. (And so I did – refer below)

Any response to family violence must include funding legal services (29 Jan 2015)

Rosie Batty – The Opposite Case (28 June 2015) Video

We must support Rosie Batty as she highlights domestic violence (6 February 2015)

Rosie Batty on why passion must lead to change on family violence (7 Feb 2015) In this article Rosie again makes no mention of the existence of male victims or female perpetrators. Rosie also suggests that the courts are biased towards the interests of the men’s rights movement and the rights of fathers.

‘Stop blaming the victim’: Rosie Batty to address MPs (2 March 2015) Rosie admits that the factors driving violent behaviour are “not readily understood“, whilst in the same paragraph asserting that it’s all about “gender inequality and “men’s sense of entitlement that a woman is their possession“. Except for violence committed by women, of course.

Rosie Batty calls for funds as poll finds family violence feared above terrorism (6 July 2015) and related reddit discussion thread

Rosie Batty should apologise for this insult to Tony Abbott (28 September 2015)

Dad begs people not to judge cancer-stricken mum suspected of killing son in murder-suicide (31 August 2020) What a contrast!

Batty ‘thrilled’ with government call to remove Arndt’s gong, calls for men to join push (30 January 2020)

Rosie Batty speaks out against Australia Day award winner Bettina Arndt (26 January 2020) And this item by Bettina addresses points raised by Batty and her feminist cronies

Family law inquiry given green light by Senate as Rosie Batty questions Pauline Hanson’s role (18 September 2019)

Why people are furious John Setka reportedly invoked Rosie Batty’s name, by Wendy Tuohy (12 June 2019) It seems that he was expressing concern about the Domestic Violence Industry generally, rather than specifically about Rosie Batty, but look at the reaction.

Queen’s birthday honours list recognises trailblazers Rosie Batty and Ita Buttrose (10 June 2019)

The sad truth about the Luke Batty Foundation (19 February 2018) and Wrongdoing at Luke Batty Foundation is indefensible (22 February 2018) Mark Latham’s Outsiders discusses alleged financial irregularities and the abuse & turnover of female directors and staff, culminating in the closure of the Foundation.

If only Rosie Batty Hadn’t made her trauma about power (31 July 2017)

Rosie Batty joins 7.30 to discuss the Summit on family violence (28 February 2017)

Mark Latham’s attack on Rosie Batty rejected by head of Rosie Batty Foundation (1 November 2016)

‘Women are being traumatised’: Rosie Batty call to end cross-examination by ‘abusers’ (25 October 2016) No mention, of course, of men traumatized via abuse and/or false accusations.

Rosie Batty partners with Lancome for domestic violence campaign (18 September 2016)

Anti-violence campaigner Rosie Batty shares son Luke’s struggle with male role models (13 September 2016) Conveniently ignores the fact that girls are equally likely to grow to become abusers after exposure to violence/neglect perpetrated by mum and/or dad (or mum’s male partner).

Rosie Batty and Danny Blay Speak about MRA’s (15 June 2016)

Rosie Batty Says Men Who Have Never Hit Women Can Still Be Dangerous (15 June 2016) And women? Hmm, not so much it seems

Rosie Batty to lead family violence survivors council (23 March 2016)

Rosie Batty: Face to face with a domestic violence perpetrator (15 March 2016)

“The prospect of a feminist party in Australia intrigues Ms Batty. But she is not sure if she would make the giant step from activist to politician. “I would never discount it … who knows, all I do know is that I genuinely want to make a difference and so if I was comfortable and confident that I could make a significant difference through a political career, I think I would definitely consider that. I think it would be a real privilege to be given that opportunity.””

Saying goodbye to Rosie (25 January 2016)

Mark Latham slams Rosie Batty’s ‘feminist nonsense’ in podcast spray (22 January 2016) Some very interesting comments to be found amongst those in this reddit/r/Australia discussion thread

Outstanding response to Rosie Batty article (7 January 2016)

Liberal MP Graham Watt remained seated during Rosie Batty standing ovation (27 November 2015) See readers comments

Mark Latham argues we are putting women in danger (27 June 2015)

An open letter to Rosie Batty, by Mark Dent (15 March 2015)

Sanctified bigotry (10 February 2015)

Rosie Batty launches anti-domestic violence app for young women (15 February 2015) How easy it would have been to market this App as a tool for both young men and women, and what a sad indictment of feminism (& Ms. Batty) that this did not occur.

Is Rosie Batty Using Her Child’s Death For Her Own Fame And Fortune? (25 Jan 2015) Whilst many will consider this an unduly harsh and cynical assessment of the situation, I’ll let you be the judge as to the validity of the points raised within the context of the broader Australian DV debate.

For non-Australian readers: The meaning of the phrase “going batty“

In exchanges within the reader’s comments section that follow various articles on the topic of DV, I have noted supporters of Ms Batty asserting that she is a champion for all victims of domestic violence. Her own Twitter profile makes it quite clear that is not the case.