Every year I go through a phase where I say I’m going to get off of social media. I delete the Facebook app from my phone, but a few hours later I crawl back wondering what I was thinking. Other times, I don’t post for a day or two. Eventually, I give in and I’m back on the merry-go-round of Facebook world. This year was different.

I did make a declaration this year that I wouldn’t post anything political on Facebook. I made it 8 days, then Donald Trump got on national TV to babble on about some complete nonsense. I posted a meme about how much of an embarrassment he is, but took it down within 15 minutes. I broke my promise, but I got back on my “no-politics on Facebook” train.

A few days later, I posted an article about the music business on my facebook page. I made a satirical statement below it in the comments section, but got backlash from a few peers. Not only was my comment satirical, it was funny, at least to me and several others who read it. I assume those who had an issue found it offensive, hateful, damaging, incorrect, triggering or harmful to someone, somewhere. The remark I made was so outrageous that I couldn’t understand how any thinking human on the planet earth would feel it was true or real in any way. Apparently I was wrong. A few days after my attempts at comedy apparently failed, I was advised to remove it. It was at that point when I said enough. I deactivated my Facebook account.

Over the past few years, I have seen people put in Facebook jail. When someone on Facebook finds a post or comment offensive in any way, they can report it to the company and Facebook can remove the post, remove your account temporarily or even permanently from the platform. This isn’t necessarily a Facebook issue. I’ve read about people being banned from Twitter and I’m sure it happens on Instagram too, which is owned by Facebook.

I often wonder what the threshold for offensiveness is? I feel that nowadays, almost anything is offensive, distasteful and abhorrent. The PC police are out in full force, ready to pounce. It appears that hate speech is “hateful” simply because someone disagrees with the person who is speaking, or they don’t like the political party they might belong to. Others think that certain words, phrases or thoughts are sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic/hurtful/hateful/mean/triggering – simply because they say so. It doesn’t matter if a reasonable person might not see things the same way. It seems as if social media cops have the power to silence others simply because they have a conflicting viewpoint, they no longer like what you have to say, or don’t understand satire.

I’ve watched Facebook change over the years and no longer feel that It is even worth my time due to the increasingly sensitive nature of the people who use it. I used to like the back and forth discussions I had with certain “friends,” but I see that it has become incredibly toxic. Anything you say is a third rail, no matter how innocuous a statement may be.

I feel much more free to get my thoughts out in a public forum here on my own site. I understand that whatever I write is subject to be analyzed and scrutinized, but at least here, I can say what I want in the way I want to say it. The opinions here are my own and not reflective of any past, present or future employer. They are my own and hopefully will make my readers think differently, deeper and might change your opinion about a thing or two along the way.

I welcome comments, dissenting opinions. I wonder what your thoughts are on social media nowadays.

And oh yeah, I refuse to be silenced, muted, canceled or put in social media jail.