By Chris Bovey

Whether we like it or not Facebook is an integral part of many people’s lives to share information and to communicate with each other.

I’m sure many of you will have fallen foul of Facebook’s ban hammer for sharing something they claim violates their sacred ‘Community Standards’, even though it clearly did not.

I reported in the past how I was banned for sharing an image with the words ‘Dumb Question Award” and another for sharing an amended version of an already famous and widely shared Pulp Fiction inspired meme, with Theresa May, apparently because it was promoting violence, even though it was obviously a joke.

I have spent the weekend with over one million marchers protesting against the Tory Brexit and demanding a People’s Vote on the final deal. It was the largest demonstration in the history of the UK, to say the atmosphere was electric is an understatement; people from all walks of life calling on May’s hapless shambles of a Tory government to let the people decide on the final outcome of the referendum.

EU flags, costumes, hilarious banners, more ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ stickers than I care to imagine, including hundreds covering the door of the Cabinet Office.

I am the main admin on two of the largest UK cannabis pages, Feed The Birds (FTB) and NORML UK. The former FTB also delves into other areas of liberal left-leaning politics and is anti Brexit. NORML UK is pretty much exclusively only about cannabis, which is why you’ll find a lot more posts on FTB, since, in all honesty, it’s simply not possible to find enough interesting material that is exclusively cannabis related.

We write our own blogs, I make a lot of the memes myself, either with an old fashioned pen and paper or in Photoshop, some get shared a few hundred times, others thousands and occasionally tens of thousands of times, so we must be doing something right.

Every now and then people bitch at us for sharing anti-Brexit or anti-Trump posts; I usually point out to them there are thousands of other cannabis pages and they can always fuck off if they don’t like what we post.

Just before setting off for London from Devon to go on the People’s Vote march, I shared the Government Petition calling for a People’s vote on NORML UK, which has now been signed by over five million people and rising. I almost never post anything on NORML UK that is not cannabis related, which is why there are fewer posts on that page. However, as a parent, this is such an important issue to me, I felt morally obliged to share it on NORML UK as we have over 110k likes and it was just a one-off.

There is little to no GSM signal between Totnes and Exeter, but I had noticed a lot of people had commented, some in favour and others spouting the same lies that the elite used to hoodwink the nation into narrowly voting for Brexit in the fraudulent referendum.

Sad people get upset over something they saw on Facebook

Some comments were in agreement and others not; I’ve had enough of arguing with morons, so when I read a stupid comment, such as claiming George Soros, the Hungarian billionaire philanthropist, must be funding this page (I wish) – I delete it. The objections to Soros (a Holocaust survivor) have to do with one fact, and one fact alone, the fact he is Jewish. I will never allow my pages to be used as a platform for morons and bigots to promote hatred, I can’t even be arsed to argue with them, so I often delete them. My page, my rules.

The NORML UK inbox received a few messages to moan, which generally were met with a curt reply, as I was in a foul mood at the time as I’d accidentally ordered a same day return train ticket, so had to spend another £100 for an open return, since I had rented an apartment for a couple of nights near Marble Arch where the march started.

One person even demanded I publish a public apology on both my personal page and on NORML UK and threatened to accost me with a gang of pro-Brexit stoners at the next 420 protest, which I never go to, as my idea of hell is spending the day hanging around in a park with a bunch of people smoking weed. Naturally, course, I told them to fuck off and I would not be removing the post or apologising to anybody.

I posted this instead on my Facebook page, which got a laugh:

After having a delightful Sunday lunch with a couple of friends in Islington at the White Lion pub on Stroud Green Road, suddenly a message popped up on my Facebook app saying I was restricted from using Facebook for a month for hate speech.

I had previously been accused of having a thick skull because I didn’t support Brexit amongst various other insults, including telling me to ‘fuck off an live in the EU if you love it so much”, although it would have had spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. These moronic comments exasperate me, as I already do live in the EU and thanks to their idiotic vote, it will be a lot harder for me to stay living in the EU if we do actually leave due to ending freedom of movement. In any case, why should I be chased out of the nation of my birth because of the minority opinion of Brexit voting morons?

I have reported some really foul racist comments before to Facebook, only to be told that it didn’t go against their community standards. I’m sure the person who insulted me still has his Facebook account operational.

My good friend, Martin Black, who runs Lucifer Films, recently received a 30-day Facebook ban for posting this …

This funny cartoon had Martin Black sent to Facebook gaol for 30-days.Another friend, John Smith, was given a 30-day Facebook ban for commenting ‘stupid Brit’ on a pro-Brexit cartoon, even though he’s British and we are known for self-deprecating humour.

What the fuck is Facebook doing, satirical piss taking of religion not allowed, don’t they realise atheists use Social Media too? As for accusing me of Hate Speech, I find that personally offensive, as someone who has spent a lifetime fighting for social justice and against racism.

Martin put in an appeal, but it was denied.

I have also put in an appeal to Facebook, which was denied, but I was given the opportunity to have it re-examined with the opportunity to provide an explanation as to why I didn’t think the post violated their ‘Community Standards”, this was of course also rejected. I’m not that bothered, Facebook is a drain, the most annoying is not being able to respond to messages, so people might think I’m ignoring them when I’m not.

So according to Facebook standing up to racist bullies who posted abuse aimed at me trying to force me to remove a link to the anti-Brexit petition or posting satirical cartoons poking fun at religion violated their Community Standards, but don’t worry if you are a Neo-Nazi, as they are allowed to stay on Facebook as they say they don’t violate their Community Standards. International white supremacist groups remain online, spreading the same conspiracy theory that inspired New Zealand attack, yet harmless satire or being rude back to racist bigots is a big no no, as far as the Zuk is concerned.

I drew this cartoon years ago, in about 15 minutes if that, because I was told I was not allowed to draw a picture of the fictional Mohammed, so I thought nobody tells me what I can and cannot draw, I’ll draw what I fucking like; had I known it would end up on the Mohammed Image Archive, I’d have spent longer on it. Fuck knows how they found it. I never posted it on Facebook.

As the founder and part-owner of a respected international company based in Austria that makes the best Solid State Drives in the world for media professionals, I am a little bit connected and I have it on very good authority from someone who has met Mark Zuckerberg that he is the most arrogant cunt on the planet. I’ve never personally met him, so I couldn’t possibly comment, but I still think he’s a cunt for allowing Cambridge Analytica to illegally collect data for expensive targeted ads that got Trump elected in the USA and the fraudulent Brexit vote passed in the UK.

In the meantime, if you still want to catch up with me, I can be found on Twitter @_dr_hemp.