UPDATE – There has been another Facebook banning as a result of criticizing the school board president:
Anne Boyer.
James Rodriguez.
Chuck Johnson.
Jeff Hanlon.
Jim Knapp.
Shawn Hubler.
Bridget Johnson.
Denise Kavanaugh.
John Redmen.
The list just keeps growing. Huntington Beach and local-area citizens are being suspended from using their Facebook accounts, “banned” as it were, for simply criticizing the Ocean View School District and in particular, board president Gina Clayton Tarvin. I’ve seen many of the offending comments and they are not profane, threatening, libelous or anything even approaching dangerous. Yet thanks to seemingly dedicated brigade of speech police that would appear to understand how to efficiently make Facebook abuse reports, voices are being silenced.
For presenting an opposing point of view.
Nobody’s quite sure precisely how it is being executed, but how could they be? Everything regarding Facebook reporting is anonymous. More likely than not, this is an example of “mobbing,” whereby a group of people dedicated to a single agenda start “swarm reporting” to Facebook at the same moment to create the illusion that something is seriously wrong. It’s not as a Facebook have someone sitting there in every case reading the comments. Rather, according to reports, they use an algorithm which simply measures level of complaints.
HB resident Shawn Hubler told me she received her Facebook jail sentence after asking Tarvin in a public Facebook forum why she would run a report on a friend of Hubler’s and post her personal and private information. I wrote about that incident here.
In the last few days, John Redmen sent me this, as he received a Facebook banning:
According to Jim Knapp, who has been highly critical of Tarvin, he is currently serving a 30-day sentence for merely typing the words “Crooked Gina” in a Facebook post.
I myself also received a 30-day banning for, ironically, calling out the fact that the trustee president has apparently been making efforts to shut down opposing voices. In the midst of a discussion whereby I was accused of “smearing” the trustee president, I responded and received this:
On October 9, 2016, I sent this query to Tarvin:
Ms. Tarvin: I’m writing a piece for my blog. surfcitychronicles.com, regarding a growing number of HB residents actually being banned from using Facebook after posting critical comments of you. I have approximately 8 people involved thus far, with several more being researched.
I have two questions for you:
1. Are you involved at all in the campaigns against these people, either by directly reporting them or encouraging surrogates to do so?
2. Would you care to make a statement as to your opinion of these actions and what is happening to these residents?I reach out to Tarvin to ask if she was aware or involved in any of this behavior.
To date I have received no response.
The board president blocks people on Facebook (including myself) and also prevents me even viewing her Twitter account:
While that is certainly her prerogative, in my opinion it does not reflect well upon elected officials that stress the importance of openness and transparency. But as far as this recent spate of Facebook bans that all involve mentioning either she or the district, as an elected official and someone who’s currently running for office, I think it would be good to know her opinion of this practice. And if she has nothing to do with it, I think it would be appropriate for her issue a statement saying as much.
Surf City Chronicles 