Stephen Ellcock has breached Facebook’s community standards, by posting the above image on his Facebook site. For this offense he was to be ostracized for 30 days. He protested, and received an apology.
I am tired of multinational corporations becoming the arbitrator of morals in our post-modern society. Personally, I suggest that Facebook should use a more laissez-faire approach. If a person wants to paste photos showing nudity, my approach would be to allow it, but then allow those closest to the poster to voice their opinions. They will undoubtedly be forthcoming.
If a person’s postings violate laws then this is not a matter for Facebook, but the local police authorities.
My concern is not with Facebook in particular, but the loss of our freedom of speech and expression in general. Those who need trigger warnings should stop reading now! Because life does not come with trigger warnings. It happens in real time. The Girl Guide/ Boy Scout motto still prevails, “Be Prepared!”
College students, and everyone else, need exposure to a variety of ideas, including those they don’t like. Coddling youth is disastrous for both their education and their mental health. Yes, Virginia, trigger warnings have a negative impact, and micro-aggression must be allowed. The following article explains the reasons:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/
Now that you’ve managed to get through that, here is something at a highter traumatic level:
Breaking Through: “Microaggressions,” “Trigger Warnings,” and the New Meaning of “Trauma”
Comments
At the moment, the mail system on my laptop has a problem allowing me to approve comments. So, I am adding this comment from Caroline, manually. This is actually linked to the above Holbein drawing. The request was dated 2016-12-17 00.46:
It seems he has been banned again – all trace of his name has disappeared from Facebook, and google produces v little info. Do you know what has happened? I so miss ( with countless others I am sure) his extraordinary and magical images that he curated with such care and generosity.
Stephen Ellcock, where are you?
End of Caroline’s comment.
Reply
Very interesting, Caroline. When I do try searching for Stephen Ellcock I find no reference to him on Facebook. Perhaps he too has found other social media. After writing the original post I googled alternatives to Facebook, and came up with ello.co, which I now visit more often than Facebook.
Also of interest is the fact that when I attempted to visit Caroline’s blog, I was met with “<blog name> is no longer available. The authors have deleted this site.”