Sunday, March 24, 2019

The neurodiversity movement gets my blog banned from Facebook

The neurodiversity movement has used their filthy tentacles to ensnare many different things.  These include the Federal  government of the United States, Autism Speaks, the Simon Foundations' Spectrum Magazine and now Facebook.

Regular readers of my blog remember that I've written about Facebook on two different occasions deleting some pro-cure (of autism) posts at the behest of the neurodiversity movement.  I wrote about this previously In response to this, I deactivated my Facebook account, not sure when I'd return.  Five days after I deactivated my account, out of unconscious habit, I relogged back in and activated it and have remained on for a while, posting sparingly.

A few days ago, Facebook reached a low in banning my blog.  When I write a new blog post, I usually publicize it on both Facebook and Twitter.  When I tried to link my last blog post on my Facebook page I got a message saying it did not meet with their community standards.  These include hate speech, people advocating violence and putting pornography on facebook.  so now autism's gadfly falls into this nefarious category.  As a test, I attempted to post the URL www.autismgadfly.blogspot.com in a facebook post without linking to any specific post.  Again, I got this message.  In response to this, I've once again deactivated my facebook account.  I may return at some point, but I guess I'm going to have to try to not to log onto facebook, at least for a while.  I might reactivate the account at some point and then see about not using it once it's active, but still don't know what I will do.

One person asked me about the details and if there was any way I could inquire as to why facebook did this.  The answer is that the only recourse Facebook offers is that you can ask for a review of the post they allege violates their community standards.  I did this, but now that my account is not active at the current time I'm not sure what their response will be if any.  As far as directly contacting Facebook to ask for an explanation, this is not really possible.  Facebook does not really give information where you can specifically contact them.  With more than a billion users, they don't have the time, resources, or inclination to answer queries about problems people have with their platform, particularly the arbitrary censorship that recently happened to me.

I'm trying to ponder the answer to the question why now.  My last two posts may have been controversial, but nothing out of the ordinary for autism's gadfly.  In response to Amy Schumer's husband allegedly having an ASD, I wrote a post suggesting that some people alleging to be autistic may have factitious syndrome.  However, I don't think this post was up long enough for anyone to take notice and immediately complain FB and have them ban my blog.  The post before that dealt with Julia Bascom's effort to have as many women diagnosed with autism as possible, stating the old neurodiversity trope that autism is underestimated in women and that the just as many women are autistic as men, despite the reported 3:1 to 4:1 gender imbalance reported in the literature.  Not sure if either of these two posts were the tipping point for neurodiversity activists or not.

In recent months, my profile increased just a little bit when I had an unfavorable article about the ND
movement published in spectator magazine.  In response to this someone filed a bogus complaint with twitter, claiming my posts violated their terms of service.  Twitter emailed me about this saying there was no basis for this claim.  Next, people repeatedly vandalized and defaced my Wikipedia page.  Because of this Yuval, who maintains my page, inquired with Wikipedia for giving my page their highest level of protection possible which they did.  Maybe I should flattered by this newest development in that I may be finally making an impact and the ND movement certainly does not want the truth about how viciously evil they are to become well known.

It seems this censorship has started to reach a new plateau with various autism books that propose bogus treatments for autism being banned from amazon.  The anti-vax documentary callous disregard has also been taken off amazon.  Various posts from the anti-vaxers have been deleted from various social media sites.

Though I don't believe the FDA should allow chelatiuon and other questionable treatments, and I don't believe vaccines cause autism for the most part,  this censorship and its slippery slope does concern me.

On Twitter, I pondered how soon would this happen to me.  Would Amazon purge my novel, the mu rhythm bluff from its site.  Would Google delete this blog, as one ND proponent vowed he said he'd be able to accomplish.  John Robison, asked me if I had any reason to believe that Amazon and/or Google had considered such action.  I replied, seriously no, but with all the power he and other NDs had acquired, I did not know what the future bode for me.

Shortly afterwards, Facebook banned my blog.

So far, I have only had problems with Facebook and not with any other site or platform, but that could easily change, and as I said, I don't know what the future bodes for me and my crusade against this insidious movement that causes so much harm to autistics and their families and does no good.  

On Twitter, I wondered what would happen if such censorship were directed at the neurodiversity movement.  One of my followers gave a concise and what is probably the definitive answer:  World War Three. 

ADDENDUM: I reactivated my FB account and posted URL to my blog as a test, it seems the ban's
been lifted.  But I'm still really pissed this happened and may deactivate the account again.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of all the social justice movements out there, ND is by far the worst. They don't give two shits about parents or caregivers or severely affected people. They just push them under the bus. Or else they bully you or try to silence you. But the truth is, the autism epidemic is real. And no amount of glamorizing it or pretending like it doesn't exist is ever going to eliminate the emotional and financial burdens that this epidemic will have for decades to come. If they think autism is so great, then why don't they work with severely autistic people and watch them so that they don't wander off to the interstate and get hit by an 18-wheeler? Why don't they deal with getting beaten up by them and pray that they don't accidentally get killed?

Anonymous said...

These actions by the neurodiversity movement are becoming a serious issue ... it's clear that they do see this as some kind of war... - It's seriously "out of control" now, I don't really like the thought of what will come in the future if it continues like this... honestly I think we need to work on becoming more organized against their actions, if we even could... -- not to easy to counter people who have the executive functioning to actually be able to organize like this though.

John Robison said...

I just tried posting a link on FB and got the message it violated community standards. I requested a review.

jonathan said...


@Luminary. You're absolutely right. The problem is, we're lower functioning, our numbers are much lower, so there's not a whole lot we can do to counter them. Parents of severely autistic children may be too busy with problems of rearing a severely handcapped child, even though they have far more to lose in this fight than I do considering samantha Crane has said elopement is something others problematize and it's their kids who could end up getting killed because of this movement.

@JER. Thanks for requesting the review. I requested one also, but not sure of what the outcome will be since I've deactivated my FB page for now.

Yuval Levental said...

Now, Neurodiversity on Wikipedia is attempting to examine the Conflict of Interest between you and myself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Jonathan_Mitchell_%28writer%29). They asked me if I was being paid by you to edit the article, and I told them certainly not. I hope that posting this comment confirms that there is no money involved.

jonathan said...

Nothing new, Clay Adams repeatedly alleged that I was being paid by autism speaks and generation rescue. Someone on twitter asked me if Jill Escher was paying me. I'm not paying you or anyone else either.

I'd be a lot richer if all these people were paying me as I guess you would be too if I or others paid you to write wikipedia articles. This is a typical personal attack on their part when they have no facts to counter my arguments.

Anonymous said...

I support you against neurodiversity but you need to change your approach that doesn’t help you. You advertise yourself as “anti-diversity” which doesn’t work now days.

The word diversity means a lot of things, some of which you probably support like equal rights. ND wishes to hold autistic people down by being anti cure, which is nothing to do with diversity, but is wanting to impose their will on science and sufferers of autism and mental illness.

Being or not being cured if/when the time comes is about choice, they are anti-choice, you need to present it as such.

They sugar coat something bad using positive language, you present something good using the negative language of being anti diversity. At the end of the day most people (including facebook moderators) are NT and are not going to read into your arguments if you go around stating your “against diversity” out of fear of being labelled some kind of fascist. Time is also precious these days and nobody outside has the time to read into your logic if you don’t present it well.

Why not ditch the “diversity stinks” and take up “freedom from autism instead” or “freedom to choose for example” I promise it will take you further?

Anonymous said...

Facebook has cracked down on blogs that have been identified as hate blogs. This blog has been IDed as a hate blog against autism, probably by Julia Bascom supporters who have labeled you a hate merchant for your entry about her and about autistic females. It might not just be about hate for autism as well as it could be said that you were being misogynistic also with that. In the face of the "Me too" movement = bad move. I agree with the anon above me. You need a change of tack.

jonathan said...

I have no idea why Facebook would respond one way and twitter would respond in another. As you may recall, the ND's have filed a complaint about one of my tweets claiming it violated twitter's TOS. Twitter emailed me, stating that their complaint was unfounded. No, my post was not at all misogynist. If anything, it's Bascom who is a female chauvinist. I still don't know why facebook banned my blog, why they deleted that post I made with Vin Deisel wearing the autism cure shirt, and one other one facebook deleted. Either they are pro-ND, more receptive to complaints from NDs or they have an ND on the inside who has the power to delete posts and block URLs. I'm probably never going to know anything more about it. Good luck in getting your computer issues resolved.

Anonymous said...

Twitter & Facebook are two different companies that react to things at different speeds at different times.

The anti-cure mob are control freaks that want to dictate what science researches and what people do which is nothing to do with what most ordinary people would classify as diversity.

They use diversity as a cover and sweet wrapper for their dark controlling views. The funny thing is the vast majority of ordinary people would view a cure for autism a positive thing and the anti-cure mob as having a weird outlook at best and unacceptable to most.

As I mentioned above you need to drop the anti-diversity label (they are not diversity), become a supporter of the right kind of diversity, then this will expose the difference between you and them, exposing and highlighting their dark policy.

For as long as you go around saying your anti diversity, they can use their cover of being the nice guys and you the extremist. You need to get advice on what I’m saying, perhaps speaking to NT carers of those on the spectrum who feel the same way, maybe having a brain storm on this strategy.

jonathan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jonathan said...

firstly, I am not anti diversity. autism is a pathology and medical condition and not a form of diversity, neuro or otherwise. neurodiversity has nothing to do with true diversity, if anything they are as diametrically different than diversity as you could get for a variety of reasons.

Secondly, I don't take advice from people who won't even sign their name to posts.

Anonymous said...

"Of all the social justice movements out there, ND is by far the worst."

There are even anti-social justice people who defend being anti-social and being unjust in the name of their Aspergers.

Anonymous said...

"neurodiversity has nothing to do with true diversity, if anything they are as diametrically different than diversity as you could get for a variety of reasons."

I know that, you know that, but does everyone you're trying to convince already know that?

Or, do some of them *not* already know that and are more likely to tune you out if you say "I'm against [something]diversity" than "I want freedom of choice"?