This is a blog entry I hoped I would never have to write, and until 2019, would never have given a second thought to. But the world has changed, and I refuse to change with it, so now this is a point that I need to address. I wanted to take some time to think about it, collect thoughts and opinions and then make a final, sound decision.

Some of what I’m going to discuss here is going to sound like I’m beating a dead horse, but I hope this will be the definitive piece on Facebook for the foreseeable future. I am looking at this piece more as a warning and guide to others than a complaint session for myself. I think those with experience need to lend it to the younger generations.

I first became aware of social networking back in the late summer of 2005, a woman I was friends with explained the concept to me, as she had just joined MySpace and said I should create a profile as well. The idea fascinated me, and I figured it would be a good way to network with other White Sox fans, since being stuck in the mountains of West Virginia offered very little, nay, nothing, in terms of other White Sox fans to know.

So, in September 2005, I created my first MySpace account.

It wasn’t until 2006 I managed to wrangle my first White Sox friend. In 2007 I closed that first account and opened a new one because I didn’t like the screen name and URL I had given myself (ACDCFanatic1977). The new account featured the screen name WhiteSoxFan1977. That fit the persona of who I actually am much closer.

Not to say I don’t love AC/DC, but I also love other bands. The White Sox are the only baseball team I watch and follow, so the new name was a much better fit.

When I created that new account, I also created a profile on the new social media website that was drawing a lot of attention: Facebook. Also under WhiteSoxFan1977.

By late 2008 I was spending far more time on Facebook than MySpace. Facebook had a more mature feel. MySpace felt like it was a social network for children.

Then in 2009, during the World Series, I started my first Twitter account.

In the summer of 2010, I had let stupidity run amok in my life and people were starting to suffocate me, so rather than just blocking said people, I decided the right thing to do was close all my social networks and start new ones, under the URL Connorms8.

This name had no special meaning but had been given to me by Netscape in 2005. It was easy to remember and I thought it poetic to use, at a time of new beginnings.

Facebook and Twitter were easily started and filled quickly with friends and contacts. But MySpace was another story entirely. When I had closed my previous account, I had over 800 people on my friends list. When I opened the new account, I managed to compile less than 50 over a month’s time. People just weren’t using MySpace anymore.

I kept my MySpace account open until the spring of 2011, and then decided it was more bother than it was worth for the lack of action that was happening on there. I closed it and never looked back. Besides, I had Facebook and focused my energies there.

Fast forward to December 2012. I went through an ugly breakup of a two-year relationship and wanted to start with a clean slate and no mention of said relationship in my social networking pages. So, I closed my accounts, again, and started anew. Again.

In those days, starting a new account was a very simple procedure. Go to the Facebook home page, click on “new account,” fill in your name, email and password and you would then receive an email to verify your account, and you were good to go. Upload, post, comment, like to your heart’s content. But if you overdid it, you would be given a warning to “slow down” and if you continued at that pace, you would receive a 24-hour block from being able to like or message or whatever you had done to violate the rules.

I still have those same accounts, dating to December 2012 to this day. After a second ugly split with a girl in December 2017, I was desirous of starting clean again but decided the amount of work that went into it didn’t justify losing seven years of my life online. After all, I had wasted seven years in the flesh and didn’t feel like losing it on Facebook as well. So, I scrolled back through the years, month by month and day by day and deleted anything related to the relationship and felt like that would be good enough.

Everything seems to have changed in 2019. And I don’t like it one bit.

Consider first that I have had one Facebook account or another since the summer of 2007. Over 12 years. And in that 12 year period, I have been “blocked” for “violating Facebook policies” a total of five times. Oddly enough, all five times have come in 2019.

In 2017 I was accused of “posting spam” but after asking Facebook for a review, the “spam” I was posting were White Sox stories from established Chicago media and my posts were put back and no further action was taken. So that doesn’t count on any level.

I was sent to Facebook jail five times in 2019 over memes, and not one of those memes violated Facebook’s vague “community standards,” which are available to peruse in the “help” section of Facebook. My memes were generally reported under the “hate speech” banner, even though no hate speech was present whatsoever and in a courtroom Facebook would have looked more ignorant than they already look at this point.

One of the posts I spent 3 days in Facebook jail over was a meme I reposted from my own wall. I posted it originally in 2017, with no issues whatsoever. When I reposted it in 2019, it violated Facebook’s “community standards” and I spent 3 days in “jail.”

Even better came a post after that, a meme that was flagged for “nudity” despite the fact that no part of anyone’s body is actually visible in the meme except a child’s head. I asked Facebook for a review and it was determined that the meme did not, in fact, violate the “community standards” and there was no nudity in the meme. The meme was restored to my wall and Facebook went ahead and left me blocked for an entire week.

My most recent stretch of incarceration, 30 days, was quite ironic. I posted a meme about people being “butthurt” over posts, which someone reported and I was hit with another “hate speech” violation. I decided I had just about had it with that account and decided the time had come to start all new accounts. It had taken less than that before to make me want to wipe the slate clean, and the slate was looking pretty bad now.

But it wasn’t to be. The Facebook sign up process, at least for me, is an impossible bridge to pass. In spite of the fact that I know numerous people with numerous accounts (and, in fact, when you close your account and are asked why, one of the options is “I have another account,” so it’s not exactly a rules violation) I am allowed only one account.

Facebook also does not give any information in regard to rules violations, in terms of “how many likes are too many” or anything, and no warnings are offered. If you broke a rule, you’re going to Facebook Jail. Whether the violation actually broke a rule or not, and it takes one time to break the “rules,” even if you didn’t know you were breaking the rules. It is Nazism at its worst. All in the name of creating some kind of utopia for people to feel “safe,” while allowing muslim beheading videos and suicide videos to flourish.

When I signed up to create a new account, I verified my email and then was asked to verify my cell phone number. Since my cell number is verified with my old account, and I can’t remove it due to my “incarceration,” I used my mom’s cell phone and verified the number. I was then asked to send in a head shot. Which I did. This still didn’t allow me to start a new account, Facebook actually asked me to show them my driver’s license.

This should be illegal, and there is no justification for having to show anything beyond a verified email and/or cell phone number. This is social networking. It’s actual level of importance is, shall we say, a few steps lower than what it thinks it really is.

So, after refusing to show them my driver’s license, my account was closed down.

Which brings me to today. I have one Facebook account (JasonConnor612), which is connected to my one cell phone and my one email account. It connects to my one Twitter account, my one Instagram account and my one WordPress blog account. And I have six days to go before my account is supposed to be unlocked and I am allowed to access it again to like and post and message. But I am wondering if that will happen now.

On top of wondering if I am going to be punished for attempting to create a new account, there is also the fact that over the past month, I have become much more comfortable posting to Twitter (where I actually have nearly 200 more followers than I have Facebook friends) for my White Sox friends and Instagram for those that enjoy my memes.

In the event that I am able to return to my Facebook account, things are going to be a lot different than they were previously. I’m not going to allow whoever found it amusing to report my mundane memes to ruin the party for me. Nor am I going to allow Facebook to ruin the fact that I can’t open a new account. I am going to cut my Facebook posting back to White Sox stories (they will be the “B side” to Twitter being the “A” side) and most of my memes will find their way to Instagram, rather than being posted on Facebook.

In fact, if I post one meme a day on Facebook, that will be more than I expect now.

I sincerely hope whoever decided to report me has unfriended me, which was certainly the better way to handle things. There is nothing so pathetic as a snitch who reports that they’ve been “offended” by something while sitting there with their toothy grin acting like they accomplished something. No one is impressed and no one cares except you.

Amazingly, I have posted hundreds of memes or just straight up photos of women in every stage of undress (including fully nude but now actually showing any of the “good” parts)and none of those posts were ever flagged for anything. I have posted many videos from the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit page and those have included topless women but those are fine. I get Facebook jail for posts about butthurt people and pictures of a plate of bacon.

I’ll continue to post my bikini girl posts and dare Facebook to call me on a violation of something an accredited page has posted. That is where I will finally draw the line.

I have heard conflicting reports as to what happens on a sixth “community standards” violation, on one hand I have heard a 60 day violation and on the other I have heard it leads to a lifetime ban. Either way, I will consider it a lifetime ban because I will be finished with the site for the rest of my life. I have better things to do with my time.

Over the 24 days I have been in “Facebook Jail” during this current incarceration period, I have read a number of articles on a number of websites about people leaving Facebook behind for good and being happy about the decision. I can certainly see why that is the case. From the vague “community standards” that fail to disclose exactly what is being violated to the draconian “Facebook jail” to the different sets of rules for different users to the politically correct climate we live in, Facebook just isn’t working out for me.

Going forward, Facebook will be nothing more to me than a repository for White Sox news articles (and a place to discuss same), SI Swimsuit photos and videos, occasional memes that are Sesame Street-approved that I can’t find any way they could be deemed offensive by anyone whatsoever and a way to maintain contact with my friends on messenger. I will be incredibly discriminating when it comes to accepting new friends and a new friend purge will being the morning I have regained access to my account. I will never again get involved with a woman I meet on Facebook, as I have a 0% success rate there.

Though to be fair, when it comes to women, I have a 0% success rate in life. That’s why I’m finished with dating for 2020, and even if I do decide to return in 2021 or sometime after, I’ll find some other way of meeting women. It will not happen on Facebook again.

So, on Wednesday, December 18, 2019, I’ll make my return to Facebook, more than likely, unless additional action is taken against me for attempting to start a new account. If that’s the case, my account will be on a razor’s edge, but not from the website, from me. The first time something rubs me the wrong way, I am out and gone for good. I don’t need Facebook to make me happy or to network with White Sox friends or to post memes.

My aggravation has far outweighed my happiness in 2019, to a point which I consider it one of the worst years of my life and Facebook figures prominently in the reasoning. I will be quick on the draw going forward and not waiting around for another miscarriage of justice, I’ve dealt with enough of those in 2019. It will be a different matter in 2020.

Thank you for taking the time to read. Peace.