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Ask HN: My local congressman is deleting my Facebook posts

6 points by palidanx ↗ HN
Recently I have been posting comments on the Facebook page of my local state ca representative and he just deleted all of my critical comments and banned the ability for me to comment on his Facebook page.

Other than obviously me being peeved and pissed off about my view of the first amendment, what can I do to get his attention? None of my constiuent e-mails have been answered so far also.

13 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 37.8 ms ] thread
cdvonstinkpot
All I can think would be to create a webpage on a domain like whyfooisabastard.com & start out with a post detailing his campaign against your personal free speech- maybe invite others he's censored to speak up there. Just a first guess off the top of my head.
dzent
try calling his office and explain your positions to his staffers
9-to-5-loser
Completely pointless ...

BTW capital letters, punctuation marks, etc. are not that expensive and make what you write a lot more readable ;)

dsl
Maybe he is posting from another country, you never know how expensive another persons bits are! ;)
palidanx
Haha my apologies. I wrote this late at night and I should have done a better job writing a more readable post :).
csense
You have the right to criticize elected officials.

But the person being criticized doesn't have to allow you to do so in their forum.

palidanx
Maybe expectations are changing, but I consider a Facebook page almost akin to a public forum now for better or for worse.
wiml
It feels kind of like a public forum, but it really, really isn't. Facebook owns it, and has complete say over how you use it. It's "private property", despite being open to the public --- there are very few public spaces online (probably because it's really hard to monetize public space). To a lesser extent, the congressman owns his FB page. You're a guest. You shouldn't let yourself be fooled into thinking you have any kind of rights on Facebook.

It's obviously a kinda shitty thing for the congressman to do (unless you were being really disruptive in the comments somehow), but other than getting the attention of a bunch ofhis other constituents I don't see what you can do to make him think it's worth listening to you.

palidanx
Yea I was thinking if my comments were 'troll like', but upon reflection I just disagreed with some of his posts.

You are right that at the end of the day it is 'his' Facebook page and he can do what he wants. I guess the tradeoff of having a perfectly curated page is disappointing some of your constituents.

kamkazemoose
Contact the local media? Maybe someone will be interested and run a story about it or try and contact the representative for you.
tn13
Freedom of Expression != Freedom to Express it everywhere.

People are free to put restrictions on expression on things that belong to them. Otherwise the books publishers will have to publish every draft that comes to them and the art gallery will have to exhibit my 2 year old's sketches.

ereckers
Write letters first of all. Can't remember where, but I've read those are much more effective than email. Call their office, or better yet, stop by and ask to speak with them.
palidanx
Through the California state representative website, they encourage us to contact our representatives through e-mail. So far, none have been returned, but maybe it is time to write a good old fashioned snail mail.