After three long and torturous days away from Facebook, I have my voice again. On Monday at 4:00 PM, I received an email from Facebook telling me that I had been a naughty boy: I shared a video that I did not have the rights to and the owner of said video did not like it and I was punished by having my account completely blocked for 72hours. Not only was I disallowed from posting or sharing as Bitchy Waiter, my own personal page was also blocked. I could not post, respond to messages or even click the like button. I felt like Ariel in The Little Mermaid when Ursula reaches into her throat and with her slimy, smokey, sea witchy hands and pulls out her voice box. I had been silenced.
The video in question was one that went up last week of a woman who was at Taco Bell trying to order french fries thinking she was in a Burger King. I shared the video after downloading it. I could have shared it from the page it was on, but I thought it would do better if I shared it directly from my own page. “Besides,” I thought. “It’s just a shaky ass cell phone video that someone posted onto YouTube. It’s not like it’s a highly produced Merchant Ivory period piece.” So I shared it.
When I got the notice that the video was being removed, I was totally fine with that. After all, it had been up for almost a week and I had forgotten all about it. But to learn that I had been blocked from Facebook for three days seemed a bit much. I immediately replied to the email, apologizing for the indiscretion and asked for them to reconsider the 36 hour jail time. No response. I wasn’t even allowed to use their stupid Facebook Messenger which they practically force us to use on our phones. Also, I went to see Hello, Dolly on Broadway Tuesday night and I wasn’t allowed to check in or post a photo of the Playbill. The horror! Three days of jail for sharing a video I “don’t have the rights to” is harsh punishment when you think of all the accusations that Facebook is dealing with when it comes to Russian meddling and the sharing of biased news items to sway the opinions of voters in the 2016 election. But, yeah, the video of the drunk girl at Taco Bell is the real issue, Facebook.
After 24 hours of being in Facebook jail, the one and only admin for the page realized he was still allowed to post. And by the way, the admin is not my husband as so many people assumed. Mark couldn’t give a rat’s ass about being the admin for the Bitchy Waiter page and would rather have a root canal than hear much about anything Bitchy Waiter related. The admin is my friend Ron who I have known since 1985 and trust completely. He posted a poll about sever super powers just to see if it would be allowed and it was. I then asked him to post about me being in a “time out” so that the followers of the page would understand the radio silence. That was on Tuesday evening and nothing else has gone up until now.
So, I’m back and have learned a valuable lesson: some people are going to report you to Facebook if you share something and it gets more of a response than it got when they originally posted it because they are jealous haters.
When I posted the video about he Applebee’s margarita, it got over 15 million views and countless shares. I saw that video everywhere: Twitter, People magazine, news outlets and all over Facebook. Some of them shared it from my page and some of them downloaded and shared it on their own. Did I report it? No, I didn’t because I knew it was just a shaky ass cell phone video that didn’t really have ownership other than by the person who originally sent it to me (and whose name will be a secret now and forever).
I will continue to do my best to bring laughter to those of us in the food and beverage industry. I will also try to shine a light on things wrong with our industry and make every effort to walk the thin line between brutal honesty and offensiveness. Facebook has been a great opportunity for me and I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds me. However, they also have allowed me to amass almost 650K followers on my page, but only let my posts reach a fraction of them unless I am willing to pay. I will not do that. I don’t pay to boost posts and I don’t pay for new followers. I try to post interesting content that will grow the following organically and if Facebook wants to punish me for that, fine. I’m ready. (I will also take this opportunity to publicly apologize for the three Diply posts each week. I know a lot of you hate them, but I deserve to make a little bit of money on this crazy thing called Bitchy Waiter. You don’t have to click them, but I wish you would.)
Okay. Time to keep on bitching.
Eric Paul Johnson
The Morals Squad at Facebook have jailed me for a week. I shared a funny video that did show a lot of skin, but no naughty parts. And the friend who I shared it from did not go to jail.
Fuck Facebook! I’m done with them. Everyone should abandon it, and go to MeWe. It’s Like Facebook, but without the Naughty Gestapo randomly grabbing citizens, and throwing them in jail.
Mark Chipman
Mark Suckerbug [ Our new peter pan } is hell bent on putting the ” monster back in the closet ” where in public an opinion or negative view is disallowed. This will for sure create a snowflake pseudo comfort zone. It also will create a society of Closet dissenters Being the LIBTARD savior set back free speech 50 yrs in the name of Playing nice. I enjoy your fresh and insightful wizardry So I am now a follower . Fk em & feed em fishheads
G.B. Miller
At least yours is a one off (hopefully). I once went hog wild when I got my first book traditionally published by posting the link to it about 5 times in a twenty-four hour period (personal page, public page and a few groups I was in at the time). FB got their panties in a bunch and to this day, 4 years later, if I post something from that particular blog, I have to do a CAPTCHA ’cause FB has labeled it as a suspicious link. I can’t even use it for any kind of shopping promo on my public page because they improperly labeled it as spam. And no matter how many times I would complain about it, they would give me nothing but lip service.
Terri
Love your stuff-it is great finishing a crappy day at work and getting to read something from someone who ‘gets it’. Thank you ?
JerAmia
I will click on your diply because you asked so nicely ☺
Julia
You keep on being your wonderful Bitchy self.
Michelle
I wouldn’t mind diply so much of They would put all their shit on one page and work the ads through the article like everyone else iso having to click next page ever 5 seconds. As for fb… kinda b.s. they usually warn you first on on second violation give u time out. Kinda crap that they just threw you in jail. Smh.. rock on bitchy.. keep on bitchin.
Wanda
I seen that video posted by several people , didn’t share it but how stupid? Who are these Barney fifes running FB? My husband gets put in FB jail constantly for responding to vulgar racist videos others are allowed to post? I love your page ? Keep on !!
Kresaera
I got banned from Facebook once because I shared a picture of a girl with a wig in her bikini for no shave November lol it happens to the best of us ❤?
Pants
I wonder if EVERYONE that shared or downloaded that video went to fb jail…….. Cause I saw it from someone else’s page before yours and even a few after yours……. Maybe you had the biggest platform and that’s why they put you in jail……. Cause that’s a lot of other people that surely haven’t been given a time out for that video……. Oh yeah…. And it’s still going around…..
Taanja
ha! I saw that video of drunk girl in Taco bell and laughed! I even commented — chicky is high or drunk or both cuz dude! fries at Taco Bell? I probably even shared the video cuz it was funny.
I didn’t know Facebook was so Nazi. Especially after— like you said all the Russian interference in our election.
Keep on keepin’ on Bitchy. I honestly laugh out loud at some of your posts.
Amy
I shared it too. LOL. You would think the person who took the video would be flattered instead of acting like Daddy Duck with his diamond MINE MINE MINE
Geoff
You have righteously earned your place in the Facebook Hall of Framed. Congrats!
Oh, and fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. Or video. Or whatever. Never mind. Would you like some nachos with that?
Kevin
LMAO
Bob
36 hours isn’t 3 days. 72 hours is 3 days.
The Bitchy Waiter
Thank you Bob. Maths is hard.
Mike
You naughty girl.
You assumed it was okay to post that video.
Mustn’t assume things. If we dissect the word into its parts, we more easily see the original intent of the word.
When we assume something, too often it makes an ass of u and me.
Hope that comes across as funny.
I learned that from an overbearing boss at my place of work.
I found this page by accident while trying to gain info regarding facebook jail. A friend had been given the three day jail time and he forgot to be careful of the time. On what should have been the third day he tried to post something a bit too early and was given two extra days. That seemed odd to me. It would have been enough to just post a notice warning him his time was not finished. But no, two more days! So it is wise to heed the hour as well.
He said to hell with Facebook, Google and the whole bunch and jumped on his Harley.
You see, my friend ass u me d his time was up, LOL
ricky lafferty
I have been in Zuckerberg’s censorship cyber jail so many times I can’t count them….I don’t care, I will calla spade a spade if it hair lips
the Pope!
Annie
So glad you’re OK! I was worried, mucho!!
Keep fighting the good fight for servers.
How’s Tricia doing?
Bryomy
Well it’s good to have you Back, Bitchy. We need someone to give me the ol’ what for