I am Grumpy.

Very grumpy.

I had noticed that a couple of my facebook groups were missing from my feed.  I wasn't overly active in either group so it wasn't a big deal, but I was bored so I went looking for them.  I couldn't find them at all.  I hadn't just been booted from the groups, I had also been blocked.

That's not something you could say was a facebook glitch, that requires someone to go out of their way to tick a few boxes.

As I had been more of a lurker than someone who comments anything controversial in both of these groups, I was more confused.  I couldn't have said anything that upset anyone, since I hadn't said anything at all in either group for weeks.

I reached out to one of the admins from one of the groups to find out why.  I wasn't certain if I cared enough to rejoin the group, but I was curious about my removal.

That admin did some digging and came back to tell me I had some haters that claimed I was trying to shut down groups.  I was banned and blocked because of that, without anyone coming to ask me what the story was.  She went on to ask if I'd heard of a certain person, let's call her Ms W, who was the second in command in a very large group.  I had never heard of Ms W and I have had nothing whatsoever to do with that group since the previous (late) owner went on a massive power trip and spent a lot of time and energy hunting down people by their associations and trying to have them banned from everywhere.

She told me that Ms W had posted all about me in a group specifically for admins and mods of pagan groups.  I admin several pagan groups, I applied to join.

I was accepted and fairly quickly found the post.  Up to that point, I had assumed that I was only one of the accused and that it was really about a plagiarism and copyright theft watchdog group I'm a member of.  Apparently it wasn't.  The post started with my profile picture, a link to my profile page, claims that I got a group or two shut down by reporting copyright violations and warnings to be careful of me.

Now if I'd done it, I wouldn't have an issue.  Shit yeah, boot me for standing up for the authors who you are stealing from, you miserable pieces of filth.  I'd be owning it and damned proud.

But I didn't.

I only heard of these groups after they'd been shut down.

The first came to my attention when someone in one of my groups asked if anyone knew what had happened to it.  I went looking and found a new incarnation (the third as it turns out).  I went back and shared the link with the person who'd been looking.

Another friend was already in this new incarnation of the group and they sent me screenshots of their files section.  Eight pages of screenshots.  The files section contained lots and lots of pdf copies of books that were still under copyright. 

So I passed this on to the watchdog group.  There are plenty of authors and people from publishers in there.  If they saw their work, they could request its removal and report it if that didn't happen.  My part was done.

A lot of people don't seem to understand that only the copyright owner can take action of any kind.  They are the only person who has the right and ability to say "this is mine and you do not have permission to be distributing it".  They are the only person who can file a report for copyright violations, on facebook and anywhere else on the internet.  They are the only person who can file a DMCA and have a website taken down.

For me to report copyright violations, it would have to be all my own work.  I have written only one book and had one piece included in an anthology. 

It takes more than one report for facebook to take action like this.  It takes multiple reports before they'll look closer and decide you're clearly a problem and repeat offender.

Through circumstances in which I was merely a spectator, the files in the new group were removed.  Great.  Issue resolved. 

The other group only came to my attention when someone posted about them in the watchdog group.  The owner of the second group was a member of the watchdog group and was called out about his so called Library.  He made his group secret and blocked the admins of the watchdog group.  This got him booted from the group.  But not before he'd gone through the entire membership of that group and individually blocked all the members. 

Well, he must have missed some because I know of at least one who is still in his group.  I've seen more screenshots of the paranoia he's taken to the new group, individually interviewing each new member before they're allowed in.

So here are two groups that I apparently had shut down by reporting copyright theft to facebook.  Copyrights I had no right or ability to report.  Groups I had no knowledge of and had never heard of until after they'd been reported.

So I commented on the post naming me in this Admin group.  This post that had apparently been doing the rounds of admin groups for a couple of weeks.  I rather politely (given the circumstances) defended myself.  I pointed out that only the copyright holder could report these things.

My comments were liked by some of that group's Admins.  I read through the rest of the group.

It appeared that an accusation of some kind of wrong-doing was all that was required for many of these admins to remove you from their own individual groups.  I saw one case that included proof and that was pretty awful.  The rest were "This person did that in my group" with a link to their profile.  This was then followed by various claims of "Eww, I recommend empaths and sensitives don't go and look" or "Thanks, removed from my group".

Gossip and rumour were that was needed for these people to decide to remove someone from their groups.  No kind of proof was provided or needed most of the time.  Hearsay is enough for hanging.

I noticed a subthread going on in the thread about me, but I was having problems opening it to see what was being said.  I kept getting messages that said "Something has gone wrong.  Please try again later."

It took some time, (I think there was some kind of weird glitch on my phone that made it seem stranger,) but I discovered I'd been removed from this group and blocked.  My friends had been removed from the group and blocked.  One commented on the thread and managed to get a screenshot before she was removed and blocked.  My comments where I defended myself had been deleted.

Somewhat ironically, the friend that got screenshots, posted on her page to warn people about this group.  The first comment was from someone else saying the first group was absolutely shut down for illegal pdfs.  She'd emailed several authors and publishers herself and sent them links to that group.  It's a public post, anyone who chooses to stalk her profile can see all of it.  I'm really hoping that someone is going to go looking.

This is the type of person that is running many facebook groups.  They aren't interested in finding out the truth of an issue, they'll believe anything of anybody.  The more salacious, the better.  They're happy to believe the worst without proof.  I'll lay money that they're the ones who require "negative" people leave their bad vibes at the doors of their respective groups too.

What I find even worse is that I'm a problem for wanting copyright laws respected.  If these groups weren't breaking the law they would have nothing at all to worry about, even if I was the person doing the reporting.

This is a very sad state of affairs.  The so-called leaders in these groups are childish gossips, looking for an opportunity to see the worst in their membership, sharing hearsay and rumours and finding more fault in wanting to uphold the law than in breaking it.

This has left me with quite a sour taste in my mouth.  I am disappointed in the Pagan community for allowing this and most of all, I am grumpy.

I am very grumpy.