We Are Apparently "Abusive"

That is the word from Facebook. Well, that is what they are telling folks behind our back.

I got home last night to find an old friend, someone who got me my first community organizing job, had tried unsuccessfully to post our video of Chris Hayes speaking at our fundraiser this past Sunday. Facebook prevented him from posting the video to his wall and informed him that:

"Some content in this message has been reported as abusive by Facebook users."

What on earth could be abusive about this video? I mean, it was a fairly innocuous speech about health care reform, grassroots video, and us. Who could take offense to that?

We have reached out to Facebook on this, which is near impossible to do, with no response. They left my friend no further information or links to click to challenge the reports of abusive content. They never informed us, the sole owners of the copyrighted material in question. There appears to be no process for determining that one's material has been banned. There appears to be no process for challenging this ban. The only phone number or email address we could find was to set up a press interview, and that number went straight to answering machine.

So who knows what will happen with our video? Likely they will remove the ban sometime over the next few weeks, but if this were a campaign video, weeks could likely be the difference between facebook users having the ability to post a video before election day. Facebook encourages businesses and organizations to focus online organizing efforts their way, some notice when you are informing our audience that we are "abusive" would be appreciated.