

Ask HN: My local congressman is deleting my Facebook posts - palidanx

Recently I have been posting comments on the Facebook page of my local state ca representative and he just deleted all of my critical comments and banned the ability for me to comment on his Facebook page.<p>Other than obviously me being peeved and pissed off about my view of the first amendment, what can I do to get his attention?  None of my constiuent e-mails have been answered so far also.
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tn13
Freedom of Expression != Freedom to Express it everywhere.

People are free to put restrictions on expression on things that belong to
them. Otherwise the books publishers will have to publish every draft that
comes to them and the art gallery will have to exhibit my 2 year old's
sketches.

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csense
You have the right to criticize elected officials.

But the person being criticized doesn't have to allow you to do so in their
forum.

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palidanx
Maybe expectations are changing, but I consider a Facebook page almost akin to
a public forum now for better or for worse.

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wiml
It feels kind of like a public forum, but it really, really isn't. Facebook
owns it, and has complete say over how you use it. It's "private property",
despite being open to the public --- there are very few public spaces online
(probably because it's really hard to monetize public space). To a lesser
extent, the congressman owns his FB page. You're a guest. You shouldn't let
yourself be fooled into thinking you have any kind of rights on Facebook.

It's obviously a kinda shitty thing for the congressman to do (unless you were
being really disruptive in the comments somehow), but other than getting the
attention of a bunch ofhis other constituents I don't see what you can do to
make him think it's worth listening to you.

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palidanx
Yea I was thinking if my comments were 'troll like', but upon reflection I
just disagreed with some of his posts.

You are right that at the end of the day it is 'his' Facebook page and he can
do what he wants. I guess the tradeoff of having a perfectly curated page is
disappointing some of your constituents.

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cdvonstinkpot
All I can think would be to create a webpage on a domain like
whyfooisabastard.com & start out with a post detailing his campaign against
your personal free speech- maybe invite others he's censored to speak up
there. Just a first guess off the top of my head.

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kamkazemoose
Contact the local media? Maybe someone will be interested and run a story
about it or try and contact the representative for you.

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ereckers
Write letters first of all. Can't remember where, but I've read those are much
more effective than email. Call their office, or better yet, stop by and ask
to speak with them.

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palidanx
Through the California state representative website, they encourage us to
contact our representatives through e-mail. So far, none have been returned,
but maybe it is time to write a good old fashioned snail mail.

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dzent
try calling his office and explain your positions to his staffers

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9-to-5-loser
Completely pointless ...

BTW capital letters, punctuation marks, etc. are not that expensive and make
what you write a lot more readable ;)

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palidanx
Haha my apologies. I wrote this late at night and I should have done a better
job writing a more readable post :).

