Member-only story
When Facebook Group Admins Become Dictators
Admins and moderators imagine themselves to be an ultimate authority and often wield their powers subjectively and unfairly
Until yesterday, I was a member of a writer’s group on Facebook, dedicated to interacting and sharing your work with other creators. Although I’d been a member since its inception, I hadn’t actively participated in the group for months because life gets in the way.
Out of curiosity, I clicked on an announcement notification I received. The group's admin was fed up with writers making individual posts, instead requesting that they contribute to the weekly thread of stories. Cool. Seemed fair enough.
They then continued that they would report any violators of the rule to Facebook for their transgressions. I thought this penalty was weird for several reasons.
One. With his hundreds of billions of dollars, Mark Zuckerberg is far too busy to care about the happenings of a 300-person writer’s group. He’s preoccupied with other meaningful pursuits like leaking all our data to foreign countries or trying desperately to convince the world that he's not a robot.
Two. It’s just a wildly disproportionate response. Someone makes an individual post to promote their stories, and you’re going to report their profile to Facebook, potentially affecting not just their access to your group but to their entire account? Makes no sense.
I said as much under the admin’s announcement, suggesting alternative forms of punishment (eww, hate that word), including giving a warning and then temporarily or permanently booting them out of the group. I carefully outlined why I thought the admin’s threat was inappropriate, and then she responded to my spiel with a sarcastic “ok.” Another creator also suggested Zuckerberg wouldn’t bat an eyelash at her complaints, and she replied, “well, I could just delete the group.”
I took my complaints to another writer’s group (that she was banned from) for the same platform to express my frustration with her responses to our concerns. I didn’t include her name or the group’s name, but I’ll admit, the words “dictator” and “bureaucracy” were thrown around. It was 10 PM, and I had been up since…
