Yesterday on Facebook I mentioned my run-in with a local car yard (Gazley, 38 Kent Terrace, Wellington) who like parking on the pavement. Just when the post was starting to gain some social media traction – with comments like these …
… and a number of these …
… I received this notice from Facebook:
Now we all know Facebook’s a machine. With a billion users, overworked call centre staff, etc., and they don’t get a chance to look at and judge each post on its merits. If you complain, they’ll take it down and leave the arguing about the rights and wrongs of it for later. Fair enough. It’s their business.
Apparently I breached Facebook’s Community Standards:
We remove content, disable accounts and work with law enforcement when we believe that there is a genuine risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety.
Of course, my contention is that parking on the pavement is a direct threat to public safety. What if you’re in a motorised wheelchair, pushing a pram or using a walking frame and are forced off the footpath because of the obstruction?
So I stand by my original post:
But maybe I’m wrong. What do you think?
Footnote: This isn’t an isolated incident. Here, for example, is a picture I took back on 6 September 2015:
Notice the complete absence of obstructive motorbikes, etc., yet this vehicle was there at least 15-20 minutes because I saw it as I was going into town and photographed on my return.