Chicago – Dr. Susan Block, aka “Dr. Suzy,” award-winning sex therapist, best-selling author, HBO personality and bonobo conservationist, is stepping up her legal fight with META, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, owned by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
To recap: Block contends that when META’s AI “content moderation” bots censored and deactivated her Facebook profile and IG account – unfairly, arbitrarily and without warning – META breached its own contracts.
META contends that Block is nothing but a wanton wh0re unworthy of any protection from harm or even being treated like a human being.
Section 230: The Internet’s Iron Dome
Meanwhile Mark Zuckerberg, the Billionaire Boy in the Bubble, is shielded from his own massively destructive mistakes and power-drunk misdeeds by a protective “bubble” – a virtual Iron Dome – enabled by an algorithmic army of bots and fortified by highly paid attorneys, complicit arbitrators and an obscure portion of the Communications Decency Act, 47 USC 230, known simply and ominously as “Section 230.”
In the legal world, Silicon Valley-friendly interpretations of Section 230 have given social media moguls like Zuckerberg that Iron Dome-like protection, letting them groom and doom, exploit, censor, ban and deny many users their right to free speech, access to the “digital town square,” even their right to communicate with loved ones in times of need.
Block’s own Facebook profile was deactivated shortly before her beloved husband of 32 years, Maximillian R. Lobkowicz di Filangieri, had a major ischemic stroke. Meta may not have caused the stroke, but it certainly didn’t help that besides deactivating Blocks Facebook profile and IG account, it also removed her Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, making it all the more difficult for her to get in touch with loved ones in this cataclysmic crisis.
“That’s Zuckerberg Family Values for you,” remarks Block. “Since 2008, Meta had groomed me and my relatives to communicate via Facebook, then doomed me to deactivation and the rest of us to zero communication.”
When Block asked META to restore her wrongfully deactivated accounts, she was greeted with stony silence, followed by a barrage of defamatory lies. On the advice of counsel, Block took META to arbitration. However, thanks to Section 230’s protective bubble around Boy-Lord Zuckerberg, buoyed by a paid-by-META arbitrator’s unsubtle coaching of META’s Mayer Brown lawyers, Block’s case was unceremoniously and erroneously awarded to META without allowing her – the plaintiff – to utter a word.
Algorithmic Ignorance & Sexual Services
In attempting to defend their indefensible actions and to keep Block’s mouth gagged shut with fabricated scandal, META falsely accused Block of being a sex worker (i.e., prostitute) providing “sexual services” via META sites. Just to set the record straight: Block is not now, nor has she ever been a sex worker, nor did she ever provide “sexual services” through META sites or anywhere else. She is a therapist providing sex therapy, as she was prepared to prove if she had been permitted to present her case. Though she has expressed her political views that consenting adult sex work should be decriminalized, and sex workers have been guests on her show, she herself is not one. Nevertheless, META’s lawyers and the paid-by-META arbitrator colluded to defame Block with the Scarlet Letter of “sex work” – on top of depriving her of her rights – to punish her for blowing the whistle on META’s fraudulent “contracts of adhesion” and its destructive, AI (Artificial Ignorance)-based censorship.
“Like so many other innocent Meta users posting about sex, politics, health and other debatable topics, I am the victim of an algorithm that identified buzz words on my profiles and incorrectly labeled me as being in violation of platform policies,” asserts Block. “Rather than bothering to even try to be fair, Facebook and Instagram just adopted the algorithm’s conclusion as gospel. No human beings even looked at my profiles until I requested arbitration, and then it was the lawyers for META, who simply sought to ratify the algorithm to avoid a cascade of claims against the two platforms for relying solely on these faulty algorithms to police content from people’s profiles. Because the fact of the matter is, as many studies have shown, these powerful algorithms are notoriously faulty.”
Next Legal Move – Motion to Vacate
Bullied but not beaten, Block is now taking META’s “bull” by the horns, filing a Motion to Vacate their deeply flawed Arbitration Award, in pro per.
Block’s motion maintains that not only was the Arbitrator biased, prejudicially squeamish about basic sex education, ignorant of algorithmic error rates and disingenuous about Facebook’s vast and unique social media power, he was also “without legal authority” to rule on Block’s case based on Facebook’s and Instagram’s contracts.
Therefore, Block asserts,“the Arbitration Award must be vacated.”
Free Speech Woman vs. Zuck the META Cuck
“One of our most valuable rights as Americans is Freedom of Speech,” Block proclaims as “Free Speech Woman” (her Halloween 2024 costume). “Most nations don’t grant Free Speech to their citizens, but we Americans (supposedly) do. It’s as close as our secular government gets to sacred. In 1789, We the American People received the Bill of Rights’10 Amendments, rather like Moses receiving the 10 Commandments. Our First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech has been revered by the world, but it has long been under attack from both the Right and the so-called Left – now on a Meta-scale.
“Whether you’re talking about sex, politics, equality, health or Palestine, power-drunk social media moguls like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk pervert the very phrase ‘free speech,’ twisting it into its Orwellian opposite, literally getting away with digital murder every day.”
Groom & Doom
“But enough is enough,” Block continues. “This past Halloween, I summoned the spirit of “Free Speech Woman” within me to hold – or at least try to hold – Mark ‘Zuck the Jiu-Jitsu Cuck’ Zuckerberg down on the Mat of Truth, holding him accountable for censoring our speech, exploiting our desires, stoking our divisions, flattening our relationships and banning us from our own communities and the Internet’s public square.”
Mark the META-Megalopolist knows this better than anyone, referring to his Facebook “fiefdom” (so-called by others) as “the digital equivalent of the town square,” and boasting meta-magnanimously that “our platforms are for everyone.”
“Really – ‘for everyone’?” wonders Block. “More for every paying advertiser and useful government power broker. But what about Meta users? What about ‘We the People’ who make Meta great? What about me? What right does Mark Zuckerberg have to ban me from the ‘digital equivalent of the town square’ – to banish me from my own communities, even my own family during a time of need – just because his faulty algorithms ascertain that my politics, religion or sex-positive values might offend a Meta advertiser or the head of the House Commerce Committee?”
While Block venerates the creators of the Bill of Rights – including Max’s 18th century Italian ancestor, Gaetano Filangieri – who was freedom-loving pen pals with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson (though Filangieri didn’t own slaves) – Zuckerberg exalts a different kind of role model (who owned lots of slaves): the first emperor of the Roman Empire, Augustus Caesar, aka Gaius Octavius, “known for making the world safe for ruthless dictators,” Block points out. “Now Mark ‘Silicon Caesar’ Zuckerberg has more unchecked power over our everyday lives than any single human on earth.”
The Greek prefix “META” means “beyond,” and Zuck the Cuck’s META has gone beyond the pale, metamorphosing into a Meta-menace to democracy.
The Pro-Bonobo Way
“Zuck the Cuck needs to be clocked!” declares Block, brandishing her cherry red boxing gloves as Free Speech Woman, fighting to win her Motion to Vacate the Award with a knock-out punch, taking down Zuck-the-Cuck (actually, just a blow-up doll effigy appropriately attired in a snappy “Meta Über Alles” white T) to the Mat of Truth.
“Tell the truth,” commands Block. “You’re a censor.”
Then, like a true bonobo matriarch, she spanks his sorry rubber butt with The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure and the Motion to Vacate, gently but firmly holding him responsible as she holds him down on the Mat of Truth between the Bill of Rights and her pointy-toed, high-heeled, cowgirl boot, as a couple of bonobo apes make peace through pleasure nearby.
“Like the bonobos, I’m a lover not a fighter, and I prefer negotiation,” says Block, “but Meta refuses to negotiate. So, Free Speech Woman to the rescue! Cage match!
Zuck the Cuck vs. Elon the Chicken
Elon the Chicken won’t fight Zuck the Cuck, but Block will.
Musk talks big, thanks to his own almost limitless Free Speech, but Block is willing to fight for love.
Zuck may be a more experienced fighter than Block, with his own personal team of high-priced Jiu-Jitsu trainers and Mayer-Brown lawyers. But Block has fighter role models too, like Muhammad Ali (whom she met at a 1996 wrap party after one of my HBO specials); the ‘People’s Champ’ could ‘float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,’ and had the courage not to fight in the Vietnam War.
Block also picked up some fancy fight moves from actor Dave Bautista, when he was a guest on her show in his WWE Champ “Batista” days, demonstrating the ”Batista Bomb.”
“Drop Batista Bombs – not real bombs! Let’s make peace like bonobos (not baboons),” says Block, “and put the brakes on this runaway train of corporate censorship running roughshod over Free Speech.”
Ironically and most unfortunately, Block is getting some real-life wrestling training by taking care of her beloved husband Max (whose stroke occurred in the middle of the “META Arbitration That Wasn’t”), involves practicing the “Caretaking Jiu Jitsu” martial art of gently but firmly wrestling Max’s one good, remarkably strong, sometimes rambunctious left hand away from yanking out his life-saving – but oh-so-yankable – G-Tube.
Even if META/Zuck wins this round (justice is not always blind), Free Speech Woman will not give up the fight, and Block will continue to press her case, mounting a new lawsuit against META in pro per, chasing Zuck the Über Cuck, like the cartoon villain he is, through the Halls of Justice.
A Trial of Human Being vs. Machine
“It’s a long shot, but putting my case in front of a jury of human beings could have long-reaching effects on how humans and our increasingly powerful machines interact. One day those machines may well have the equivalent of human emotions and judgment. But today they do not, and we cannot (or at least should not) permit them, at this time, to rule over our constitutional rights – no matter how many Zuckerbucks AI saves Meta stockholders.
“Sure, Meta has the legal right to control content on its platforms, but that control must not be left exclusively to error-riddled AI. There must be checks and balances. My day in court is just such a check and offers a reasonable and absolutely necessary balance between human being and machine on this sensitive issue of censorship. If we do not strike that balance now, the thought of what future publications might be censored, or not censored, is chilling.”
This is not Block’s first round in the Free Speech Ring, nor her first “pro-bonobo” lawsuit in pro per, punching up (never down) against an overly powerful authority stomping on her First Amendment Rights. Block successfully sued the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) back in 2002 when they unjustly raided her studio, for which she won a large enough settlement from the City of Los Angeles for her to create Bonoboville in real life and on the web.
Zuck’s a different kind of fight, of course, but, in a way, he’s already crying uncle…
True Confession: Zucky Feels Guilty
Some will call it a pure coincidence, but shortly after Block’s case against META was being tossed out of the Kangaroo Court of Arbitration, META CEO Mark Zuckerberg released a letter to the U.S. Congressional Judiciary Committee on the subject of META’s overly zealous, government-coerced censorship, aka “content moderation on online platforms.”
“Senior officials from the… White House repeatedly pressured our team for months to censor [content]… I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it…”
“Sounds like Zuck the Cuck feels guilty for censoring us,” observes Block the Therapist. “As well he should! But don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing bad about cuckolding, as long as it’s between consenting adults, and Zuck’s cuck guilt (if he has any) is a private matter between him, Priscilla, their bull and their therapist. But Zuck the Cuck doesn’t feel guilty for cuckolding. He feels guilty for censoring us! And considering Meta’s beyond-the-pale power, poor little Billionaire Bubble Boy Zuck’s problems wind up hurting us all.”
“Meta is censoring us per Mark Zuckerberg’s obeisance to certain government officials, advertisers and the power of his own Meta-Bot AI Army,” Block continues. “These bots are so powerful, they even subjugate Zuck himself – rather like Victor Frankenstein conquered by his own Monster – as they stealthily and relentlessly obliterate all of our rights to speaking freely.”
Markie Z’s Meta-Megalopoly
“We’re about promoting speech and helping people to connect in a safe and secure way,” Zuck prattles on in his usual robot-programmed-to-sound-human style.
“But what about promoting my speech?” asks Block. “What about helping me to connect in a safe and secure way? I was not safe or secure when Mark Zuckerberg groomed me for over 15 years of participation, and then doomed me in a nano-second to deactivation – all duly exploited by Markie Z’s Meta-megalopoly.”
Block is fighting in the Meta Ring for her rights as well as the rights of all users on Meta and “beyond.”
“Sure, I’m slugging it out in the Meta Ring in hopes of having my accounts restored, though this isn’t just about my rights, but the rights of all Meta users and ‘beyond’,” Block explains. “It’s also about honoring my beloved Max’s pre-stroke wish that no single corporation, person or amateur Jiu-Jitsu-fighting Augustus-Caesar-wannabe have the unchecked power to banish us – with zero accountability – from the ‘digital town square’… and beyond.