Let's shake the world!
A handful of days ago Facebook’s founder-ish and CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivered a much anticipated free speech (I assume he took no fee seeing that he owns many billions of dollars) on free speech to a group of Georgetown University students. There he stood, black dry-fit shirt wicking moisture from his peach-like bosom, behind an earnest mahogany lectern, brave and glowing, the thrill of a Kai Lenny tow-foil session certainly still warming his cockles and/or the rouge applied to his cheeks.
He was ready to defend his platform, including our participation on it, and I couldn’t wait to listen.
Oh his free free speech had absolutely everything, a revisionist origin story, righteous indignation, chest pounding, moisture wicking, a patented Kai Lenny glow but best of all the complete repudiation of censorship. There Mark Zuckerberg stood tall-ish, saying, “People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world. It is a Fifth Estate alongside the other power structures of society.”
And…
“We are at a crossroads. We can either stand for free expression or we can decide the cost is simply too great. We must continue to stand for free expression.”
My own heart melted at this last statement, though I had no moisture wicking dry-fit to clean it up, and I felt we had broken through a major wall. Maybe even the World Surf League’s Wall of Positive Noise™. As you certainly remember Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook and our World Surf League entered into a 30 million dollar partnership a few years ago. The consummation of that union, as you must recall, was the deletion of my “edgy” but popular Instagram (owned by Facebook) account ReportsFromHell which specialized in surf memes and penis ping-pong videos.
And I raged inside.
Burned hot.
Surfing is but penis ping pong on the water and the fact that Santa Monica’s High Tower couldn’t recognize that, couldn’t withstand very dull barbs, criticisms, honest hot takes, made me crazy inside.
How dare they.
How dare they cancel a very poetic expression. A true-to-life rendering of what we all love more than.,. anything.
Well, I celebrated Mark Zuckerberg’s rebel yell by posting a very poetic image of a brave young man choosing freedom of expression over the stilted norms of his family. An image that has come to mean so much to me over the years. My own Joan of Arc. My north star.
The post was flagged and removed within seconds and I know exactly by whom.
The same entity that asked for the deletion of ReportsFromHell.
That cursed World Surf League.
And it is so far beyond bad enough that the “democratic” powers-that-be capitulate to China’s version of authoritarian control. Mark Zuckerberg has been proven a liar, Facebook but a lowly and crude hitman for Santa Monica’s totalitarian whims.
Vanishing iconic content. Content as iconic as the brave young man who stood in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square.
Stab and The Inertia are just as bad, vanishing comments, restricting speech, dancing to the guzheng strum of tyranny all while positioning, I imagine, to be State Television for Professional Surfing and it’s Olympic Successes. Millions of people falling in love with the Pastime of Kings. Billions even, with China happily involved.
The censorship… it’s wild and drives me crazier.
We surfers, we used to know better. We used to be raw, legendary surf journalist Drew Kampion raw, willing to to shoulder the terror of Richard Milhous Nixon in order to be free. To be us.
To be surfers.
Well fuck Facebook. Fuck the WSL. Fuck collaborationist surf media including, but not limited to, Stab and The Inertia and of course the propagandist mouthpiece Surflie.
I’d conclude with “Delete your Menlo Park owned/Santa Monica directed social medias!” but that reads ineffective and impotent.
But just imagined if we did. If all surfers deleted Facebook and Instagram on principle we’d shake the world.
Should we shake the world?
We’re the source of raw product that goes into the means of production. The customers are the advertisers who pay for the distilled ‘behavioural insight’ that allows them to influence us into buying their lifestyle accessories
Already implemented, just by corpos not governments
Great read. I FEEL you, man. I was banned from beach grit.
sorry I meant stab. I was banned from stab
please dont ban me.
#FUKZUCK says I
He is a Russian asset and should be treated as such. Psyops via social media is the Cold War battlefield of this century and he’s not on the side of democracy.
What makes you think that democracy is the “other side”? The sideshow of nationalistic posturing is a distraction from the real issue which is a very small group of companies that have transformed capitalism and now profit from a different model than the rest of us are thinking about or raging against. The only enemy worth referencing is Capital, and very soon, the legacy Capital of the 20th century won’t be worth including in that categorisation.
Instagram has no practical use unless you’re a teenager.
Facebook is a different beast. They cleverly found the gap that MySpace and Hi5 didn’t fill; a way to keep in touch with friends in family instead of hacking out an email. It’s the newsfeed that has turned us all into self-absorbed zombies.
I just started a new job. Open plan office and you can see every other person’s screen. It’s pretty much frowned upon to even have internet explorer open as everyone knows you are slacking off. Reading the newspaper is risky and fb pretty much out of the question.
Took me a little while to get used to not checking my fb every half an hour and I probably do have a quick look on my phone while i’m taking a shit but otherwise it’s been painless.
The only reason why we don’t all delete fb in a fit of rage is because its become pretty much the only way to keep in touch with old friends. Who keeps up to date with email addresses and phone numbers anymore? The person who works out a new way of keeping in touch without using fb that will be the next internet billionaire once they work out how to fill it full of ads.
Do you still have Facebook..?you’re better than that Chas
I searched surflie and surfline came up hmm?
I did the same earlier with the same results, interesting……….
the penis mightier than the sword.
underrated comment
Lick my balls!
Derek Reilly founded STAB and was heavy handed moderating and banning, Chas.
Derek was well and truely gone when STAB woke up and realized the comments were out of control.
Comments were great. Was one Brazilian who is out of control. Maybe I’m just nostalgic, though.
We need another cavy I say!
You’re a loyal foot soldier Negs… incorrect, but loyal.
Leave it at that amigo.
That’s a very polite door slam Hippy.
In the early days I recall the moderation to be almost non-existant under many of the minor stories.
I’m polite because I respect you. And I’m not slamming a door, I’m conveying that I don’t remember you around at that time.
An athlete passed away, the comment sections did not believe the CEO’s cause of death get out in front of the story before people dig deeper. We received a cease and desist from STAB’s valued advertiser.
As one blog shut down, we moved to STAB until the new one launched. Maybe I could have changed my screen name? Yes, could have. But the thoughts were inconvenient to STAB’s revenues. I was one of several banned for pointing out that the corporation should not be involved with the managing of the star athlete’s post death PR.
I know that I made my points without being vulgar…. that was important as the vitirol. The environment was caustic, the corp was pumping out lies and it had to be addressed where people read the message not the hysterical messenger.
Would never disrespect you.
Apologies re door slamming…
I too found myself at STAB after the death of another message board and only become Negatron after getting a new computer and losing log in details. I do remember those conversations and seeing deleted comments. It’s still a wild beast that whole saga.
I guess I stick up for Derek because I see how he handles himself here.
STAB days I don’t really know how involved he was in moderation or what the company Policy was. No one does still, and that’s why they’re losing ”us”
But I do know he gets fucking nervous with anything that could bring a Court case this way and that’s been the only times there has been conversations here about killing or editing comments.
And I can count those times on one hand and have always been given free range to do as I see best.
If I delete a comment of worth the person will know why.
I’m going to use another example to make my point.
Nick took the position that the audience should have no voice. I disagreed in the next issue of that magazine. Now he’s a welcome part of our dialogue because he realizes that we are his audience (peers), not his Advertisers pay checks. Simple yes?
So if someone respected like Nick says…. “my opinion at that time has changed and I like being a patron of this bar now”….. cool. Everyone grows. Dude surfs well, I’d love to hear his stories about the tour he could never type in the day.
But coming clean is necessary.
Derek replies to my emails quickly. He is obviously is engaged. When Chas congratulates BG or pounds his chest against moderation or banning, he has to be aware of the not too distant past and what Derek may have been forced to enforce.
“Oopps, mispoke, no harm done, we’re trying to do better”…. That’s all anyone can ask, acknowlegement or you become as disingenuous as Elo. You become a different wall of noise.
No one wants to get sued, the aggressors ultimate weapon. I was in your country having a fine time when the editor emailed his decision to shutter after the cease and desist over my story. The comment section was ballistic. The IP addresses were filled with Billabong.com employees. Remember, Disqus was not in play yet (gosh I hope I am right).
As a disgruntled US citizen, I’m fucking sick of two things. Promotion and Hypocrisy. That’s all we get here…. advertising and lies. It wears on a man’s soul
Point noted.
But don’t except Derek to come clean anytime soon now that Beachgrit is jumping into bed with Billabong.
I hope you are joking amigo.
I wish he was…
No joke.
Saw Facebook clip yesterday from BeachGrit pictures doing something with Billabong and Metallica.
You do realize Chas and Derek aren’t just doing this for the shits and giggles?
Inertia has mellowed a bit, but they can be (are) the ‘worst’ by far– almost whatever you want to hear, just to make a buck– make a gremmie cry almost…….
How many sites are you banned from now Freerider?
Its hard to tell if Chas is just the grumpy old man DLS eluded to the other day or if our sacred leader is having an illuminating insight in between drinks. Surf must me flat over there…
Off Topic:
I remember a couple years back when Chas wrote an article about Tom Delonge and his UFO fascination.
Well, if this don’t just make you scratch your head:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/…
*and with all that said Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer at Facebook just pledged £1.93m ($2.5 million) to the Anti-Defamation League, which is basically a ____ , well-i-will-leave-that to you—to the truth researchers & wiser surfers…. ADL was founded in 1913 -because of the evil crimes of Leo Frank (one might ask Is Leo related to Eva Frank? daughter of Jacob Frank?)–yes, the Frankists are related to Facebook, yes.
I did not endorse this misspelled product placement.
He looks like that guy from the Facebook movie
Shot, that was real?
They Thought you would follow the (((Stars))). Sheeple Awake.
I was censored in weird way here during the last contest when I mentioned Hong Kong.
I may be made to dissapear soon.
fk chinazis
Let’s test that theory
The world today seems absolutely crackers
With nuclear bombs to blow us all sky high
There’s fools and idiots sitting on the trigger
It’s depressing, and it’s senseless, and that’s why
I like Chinese
I like Chinese
They only come up to your knees
Yet they’re always friendly and they’re ready to to please
I like Chinese
I like Chinese
There’s nine hundred million of them in the world today
You’d better learn to like them, that’s what I say
I like Chinese
I like Chinese
They come from a long way overseas
But they’re cute, and they’re cuddly, and they’re ready to please
I like Chinese food
The waiters never are rude
Think the many things they’ve done to impress
There’s maoism, taoism, I Ching and chess
So I like Chinese
brilliant
chess’ arab…
Aunty Chas says the local pre school are removing their Christmas tree this year to be non denominational so a bunch of us are headed down there to protest!
Please Never stop!
A NonDem Christmas
Is akin to a NonPipe
World surfing tour
Wave yer pitchforks and punch cunts while burning the place to the ground while screaming about “Jebus is Luv!”
Oh wait. There’s a total fire ban on right now. So can you wait til we get some rain?
How in the hell did that guy get his invisible wetsuit so quickly? It’s not like Once Upon a Time in New Zealand was released all that long ago.
Also, here’s a thought Chas. It was fucked up when ReportsFromHell was deleted. It was a success. But when you can build that success from start twice, that is legacy. Some could argue RFH was not successful b/c of you. When you build that success from the ground up again, they can’t say it isn’t you.
Best part of Zucklander speech was “I know I can be robotic.”
It’s part of Quiksilver’s next range, the Highline Invisible.