My Near Brush With The Facebook Bot Police. Or Maybe Not?

​COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023:

​"Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.

​
​MY NEAR BRUSH WITH THE FACEBOOK BOT POLICE. OR MAYBE NOT?

     A few days ago I was unwittingly on the verge of being nabbed by the Facebook Bot Police and hauled off to Facebook Jail, that nether state in which one is banned from using Facebook for some infraction for a period of time, maybe a few hours, maybe a few days, or maybe, if one has been especially and repetitiously incorrigible in one's postings,

...indefinitely.
​      Or maybe I wasn't a hairsbreadth away from Facebook Jail. Maybe what I posted wasn't in its context offensive to the Facebook community standard after all. Or maybe it was offensive and the bots, if they are insidiously efficient, will find what I posted (and soon afterwards deleted) floating somewhere around the vastness of the internet, where stuff can be created but not destroyed, and get me yet. 
          In truth, I don't actually know what my standing in the Facebookverse is at this moment. If anybody knows exactly what it is that one gets Facebook jailed for, I am looking for enlightenment.
​          Anyway, here's my tale:
       A few days ago I posted on Facebook my previous blog, which was about a WWII spy novel I'd recently read, "Crosswind" by Karen K. Brees. 

     I found this book fascinating because of its subplot, which involved Adolph Hitler's little-known plan for a master race of Aryan plants in tandem with his plan for a master race of Aryan humans. (See https://www.ailantha.com/blog/crosswind-adolph-hitlers-plant-army).​
       I came up with the idea of photoshopping a swastika onto a photo of a garden and using it as the cover picture for my blog post. Here's what I came up with:

      I thought it was a pretty snappy picture, and  when I posted my "Crosswind" blog on Facebook, this picture  showed up with it on my timeline. 
        About an hour after I'd posted the blog with the Nazi garden picture, one of my daughters called me. 
       "You might want to take down that swastika picture from Facebook," she said.  "If the bots catch it you could end up in Facebook Jail."
          "Facebook Jail?" said I. "It's not like I'm promoting white nationalism! Don't the bots know from context?"
          My daughter replied that she didn't know if the bots knew from context. If they did I might be all right. But if they didn't I might be Facebook toast. She said that she wouldn't bet on the bots getting context. Rather she imagined their bot-radar making a beeline for that swastika. And me.   

       So I quickly switched out the picture of the swastika garden for a picture of the book cover:

        And I head not a peep, snap, crackle, or pop from the Facebook bot police. 
        Still, I wonder if I'd left that swastika garden picture up, would I soon have gotten the Facebook hook? Or might the Facebook bots be more perspicacious than we understand?
​        Which is also a scary thought.