Supports received so far from the climate community
Update 08/09/2020: Declaration against Facebook’s censorship
One of the messages Facebook prompts when someone tries to link to this blog
Dear readers, since at least the beginning of August, without FB having given any signal or having consulted me at all, the users who try, in their profiles, walls or pages, to link to http://younoselocree.com, or to any of its pages, are warned that this is not possible because this blog violates its “community standards” and / or that this blog uses spam techniques. The latter is of course totally false, bullshit, since the only emails issued are those that warn subscribers of the publication of a new post, and of course they have explicitly consented to it. You know perfectly well that all subscription blogs operate in that way. About the standards it remains to be seen, because I would like to know what standard it turns out that this blog does not meet when rigor and solid argumentation have been its main guides from its birth.
That is worse than expected! “Facebook does not want you to believe it”, has been ironically pointed out.
On August 8, I became aware of this circumstance, which I was able to verify by myself. Since then I know that a fair number of users have made their complaints to the administrators, without any reaction. So far, total silence.
Another message prompted when trying to link
The first attempt to contact the administrators, even before my knowledge of the facts, was carried out by Antonio Turiel “from the (Spanish) Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC)” by means of this text on his wall – which I thank infinitely – which he also sent directly to the administrators of that social network. I did the same shortly after, also publishing my own claim on the namesake Facebook page (which I also reproduce below along with Turiel’s in case it failed at some point).
Thats not all. Actually, I was seldom visiting Facebook (except in recent weeks, of course), because I hated to see how, through various tricks, climate denialism was actively promoted. I went there very few times a month, if ever, and almost always just to congratulate birthdays of estimable acquaintances. Only once in a while did I republish something on climate issues from other walls; I’m (just a little) more comfortable on Twitter.
And other. There is no apparent criterion, as soon as one comes out as the other. The aim is to discredit
That homonymous FB page was, that’s right, connected to the WordPress editor so that, when publishing a post on this blog, it is automatically published on FB (and a tweet is also issued). Now the link to WordPress has stopped working. I insist: I am not referring to my personal profile, but to the namsake page of this blog. Well, now all the publications on that page that linked to a post on ustednoselocree.com, published for more than 10 years, have disappeared, leaving only those few republications. Presumably, the same happened with those of other users or forums who have seen fit to link here at some point. But if any user wants to link now… they can’t. Alert! Standards violation! Spam!
Talking with Antonio Turiel on August 8 irked interferences from the organization
The thing is still worse. When that August 8th a public dialogue about it was established in one of the FB forums, the comments that I was inserting disappeared after a few seconds, later they reappeared – or not. The same thing happened to Antonio Turiel, with whom I was speaking at the time. It was clear that they were watching us live, and they were censoring us live – or not. They appeared erratic because they did not know what to remove and what to leave; I imagine the role of the executors. That made us stop communicating there, and on a personal level we dispensed with WhatsApp, since it is the same company and we assumed that they could also be spying on us by that way. Telegram is now the alternative option, and I am about to withdraw from WhatsApp in favour of this last option, for now much more secure and flexible.
The Navarrese geologist Antonio Aretxabala, also very active in the networks nicknamed “El Txakras” on FB, was kind enough to reproduce my claim on his wall. Oh, but two days later that republication suddenly disappeared. And if you have experienced infuriating slowness problems when loading that my FB page, as was happening at least in those first days, please know that this technique is also part of the ways to discourage visits to uncomfortable content that the organization uses. Since then everything seems to have been left in charge of the software, despite the countless complaints from dozens of users, which I am aware of and I thank greatly but which, predictably, have not had any effect, until today.
When I tried to publish the claim that I had sent just before directly to the organization, I noted the censorship and covered not only the root URL with the https but also the single word ‘ustednoselocree’, even the sequence ‘usted no se lo cree’. I ended putting blah blah blah – although some users have referred less restrictions recently. Apparently detours and tricks can be used such as inserting something, for example an underscore, then warning that it must be removed to paste it in the browser and access this blog. Ok, but it is clear that those are tricks that discourage many users, of course the most fleeting ones, those that could eventually expand the regular audience.
Facebook, in one of the messages it presents at any attempt to link (which is not always the same), states that my blog contains “untrue information.” In my unattended claim, I asked them to tell me what this or those information is, since it could be assumed that the censors have been adequately informed and could point out the errors to me and, if necessary, I could correct them. Pedro Prieto with his usual irony made fun of the fact that the censors were to know more about climate change than I do. Somehow I turned the table. But nothing. No one nearby. So far, just silence.
Thus, given that the scientific does not seem – nor can it – be at the origin of this situation (note that Antonio Turiel’s claim is so as CSIC) I wonder, and debated with friends, what could be the real reasons behind this censorship. The fact that the name of this blog may suggest something unscientific has been discarded – if perhaps it would be the wink it suggests and its ease of being remembered that should bother them. Nor is it the only blog in the world that proclaims that climate change is worse than expected and that the IPCC falls short or very short (although perhaps it does with the detail, documentation and causation with which I refer). There is even a Facebook group called Faster than Previously Expected, with a not inconsiderable following.
Could it be the ineffable denialist plazaeme, with his acolytes from Juan de Mariana and the like, had been orchestrating a campaign to denounce this blog? You can expect anything from theose people. If so, it would seem that it was just a thing of the software, which temporarily blocks a website in case of many reported disgusts in a short time. However, the number of messages addressed to FB by tens or hundreds of users pointing out the inadequacy of this censorship, and the time elapsed without a minimum explanation rules out, in my opinion, that possibility.
But… what about the fact that the last post prior to the lockdown was associating pandemic with collapse… isn’t that anathema to the powers-that-be (not just Facebook)? It could have been the first or one of the first to point it out, but of course I have not been the only one. I am not aware that there has been other censorings for this reason. Anyway, I am still waiting for some signal.
Gaia Vince, also censored
A little more still. Facebook had also blocked, as I later learned, the blog ‘Wandering Gaia, Dispatches from the Anthropocene’, from Gaia Vince. Gaia is the journalist who, well advised by top climatologists, published in New Scientist in 2009 and in The Guardian in 2019 exercises on what a + 4ºC warmer world that could house 10 billion people would look like, as soon as in 2060. She did so on the basis of reports from the British Met Office that I referred to here as early as 2010 and in talks, and very recently also here. Vince is a very relevant person in scientific communication. She has been responsible for the Nature news section and New Scientist online, and currently writes for Science, The Guardian and BBC online. Censoring her is, once again, a crime.
Ideological censorship and early warning to surfers
In these issues of the climate crisis, energy-financial crisis, civilizational crisis, collapse and other chaos, we can distinguish five types of narratives, approaches, points of view, perspectives, stories. They are, to my understanding, the following:
- Nothing happens, or nothing serious. There have always been catastrophists who announced the end of the world.
- Something important happens only in the climate field, but measures are being taken and it will be solved through market mechanisms.
- Something really serious is happening in the climate field, but in the energy field there are technical alternatives: a “Green New Deal” is necessary that will solve it in time, totally or partially, trough new technologies still to be conceived and developed.
- Something really serious is happening with imminent civilizational risk both in the climate field and in the energy field (with its financial derivatives and world food security). The time for incremental actions is already over.
- The civilizational collapse has already begun, having collided long ago with the physical and biological limits of the Earth. The crisis is existential. No one is truly safe. The appearance of Covid-19 is accelerating the process.
You understand the first three allow the resuming of the status quo with a variable level of adjustment; and that the last two inexorably lead to the overhaul of the status quo, namely, the radical redistribution of power and wealth. There are then no valid answers in the framework of the status quo; it is the status quo, with its need for continous growth, the real problem. Therefore, it is imperative to decrease in a managed way and very quickly – if that could be possible. If we do not do so, physical laws will force us in any case to do so with merciless brutality.
Regular readers know that this blog is somewhere between points 4 and 5, and that’s why so great amount of evidence is needed. So I conclude that this Facebook’s censorship, dear reader, is no other than an ideological censorship of the neo-totalizing trend of Facebook (and company), whose aim is to control the story for the coming times, which are no longer behind the horizon but rather discernible for those who approach these issues without prejudice.
Social networks are the new tools to control the subjectivities of the population. “Thus far and no further”, said Noam Chomsky, theorist of the uses of the media by the powers-that-be, pointing to what is allowed to report and debate and what is not – and what happens to those who dare to cross the line and reach too much audience. They have been working under this key for some time yet, but it seems that, now, they are doing it unabashed. This could mean that the next turn of the screw could already be retaliation, via the lawfare that we are already beginning to know in this country, or whatever.
It is also a warning to surfers. The only climate narratives allowed should not question economic growth. The limit set by the powers-that-be for speech and public debate is the now called Green New Deal, just a nominally updated version of the now worn ‘sustainable growth’ mantra of the 80-90s. Oxymoron suitable to just delay any significant action the past three to four decades, critical as they were. In none of its versions does this GND deny economic growth, which is already recognized as the root of the problem for so many people, and in the majority of flavours it actively promotes growth.
If the (private) powers operate in this censoring way it is because they know that they are going to achieve something. There will always be people who question the contents of the blog after seeing that I do not comply with “community standards” (very ugly) or that I “spam” (something also very ugly, of course in Europe where this is reportable). They not only censor legitimate and well-documented information; they also cast doubt on the legitimacy of this blog and on the rigor and competence of its author – which is by far what hurts me the most. These censors are veritable “merchants of doubt,” according to the celebrated expression – and book title – of historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway.
However, the “Streisand effect”, according to which censorship achieves the opposite effect to that intended by further publicizing the information, has already manifested itself. Despite the Augusticity of the incident, the number of subscribers to this blog has almost doubled (in just under a month this blog has received almost as many subscribers as in its 12 years of existence!). But FB’s friend requests are another story. They are also counted in hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand. I accept them without any filter due to lack of time to discriminate – and to try to reach them with this writing, but they are very strange and suspicious. It is a legion of people from all over the world. Some offer me large amounts of money on (apparently) incredibly favourable conditions; other offer sex in different and funny varieties. Those who actively address me via messenger with these attitudes I immediately leave them behind. I do the same, with greater anger, with those who have the audacity to call me on the FB phone without an appointment, at any time of the day or night.
How did all these people come to me, now, suddenly? Why do they arrive by great salvoes, and not more or less regularly? It doesn’t seem like a coincidence … Could it be a trap?
But beware, there is still more
The one who apparently was the first to detect and denounce the censorship to UnslC the day before I found it out was Anonymus Spain. Well, the next day they found an ax blow that suppressed some 360,000 followers, leaving them with only a few dozen. They blamed it precisely on that ad. I tried to contact them via Twitter, but got no response.
Some Internet user whose name I did not register stated with apparent certainty that in fact Anonymus Spain is nothing more than the Spanish police locating Catalan independentists, which is not implausible in view of the erratic role that this organization showed itself around the 1-O repressed referendum, although of course I cannot affirm anything conclusive. But certainly, if Facebook faces Anonymous in this savage way, they must have calculated that that’s not an unacceptable risk. And so far, as far as I know, after almost a month, nothing remarkable has happened.
The fascism of Facebook
So you already know. If you are not yet a subscriber and are interested in these topics please subscribe while it lasts. Better by mail than by RSS, because that way the number will appear at the top right. And I thank you in advance for all actions you can undertake to publicize and report this matter. I have waited to make it known to counteract the Augusticity, so that it could now each a wider audience than while the holiday period of the northern hemisphere. But we are not going to stay only in this simple and humble complaint.
Harald Welzer refers to “fascism of Facebook” in his excellent 2017 work “Thinking for yourself. Instructions for resistance”(p. 181). Fascism as criminalization and silencing of dissent, prior to its eventual liquidation if revealed necessary.
But knowing that fascism is not negotiated, but is fought, something will have to be done to counteract these incipient samples of informational authoritarianism that have begun on the walls of Facebook. Oh, the walls… Break down the wall!
Presumably interesting things will happen in the short term. Please stay tuned.
Please seeee the requests to Facebook at the bottom of the Spanish version
