You will be judged by your inaction!

November 2024

Why were my previous "Paul Litherland - InspireME" and "Surf Online Safe" Farcebook pages closed?

Am I an antagonist, looking to cause dissent and get fame? Or, am I an advocate for the protection of families, utterly frustrated by the heartlessness of Big Tech?

YOU DECIDE!

In June of this year, an amazing young man by the name of Levi Tracy lost his life to Acute Myeloid Leukaemia at the age of 19. Levi had been fighting cancer on and off since he was seven years of age.

During the toughest time of his life, Levi was not only fighting cancer, he was also raising public awareness to this terrible disease. His wonderful family continue that awareness fight as a legacy to their son.

Two days after Levi's death, a fake Farcebook page in the name of Levi was created, which commenced requesting donations for a funeral from Levi's followers.

I heard Levi's Dad Mark talking with Gary Adshead on 6PR Perth that morning, so I jumped on the phone to Gary and told Mark to call me so I could help close the fake page.

With the assistance of the WA Police and my contacts at the eSafety Commissioner, it took three days to have the page closed. The following day, another page was created by the same scamming group. That one took four days to be closed! I repeat; eleven (11) weeks!

I was ignored by all sixteen. No response! Five of them looked at my LinkedIn page, but did not engage with me.

Once everything settled, the fake pages were no longer coming and Levi was laid to rest, I decided to add a post to each of my two Farcebook pages.

The post outlined what had happened with Levi's family and the struggle I had in closing the fake pages. In that post on each page, I named all sixteen (16) Meta Executives who ignored my plea for help. I posted their position at Meta and accompanied each name with their public profile photo.

The post was active on my Paul Litherland - InspireME page for fourteen minutes before being removed by Meta.

The post was active on my Surf Online Safe page for twelve minutes before being removed by Meta.

Within eight minutes of each post being removed, I received a warning from Meta about the post, outlining it went against their Community Standards.

Within twenty one minutes of receiving the warning, my Paul Litherland - InspireME page was unpublished and removed by Meta.

Within twenty six minutes of receiving the warning, my Surf Online Safe page was unpublished and removed by Meta.

I was refused the opportunity to appeal both removals.

View the article about Levi on the WA Today website HERE.

Summing up - It took Meta eleven weeks to remove pages that were clearly scamming people, using the same images of Levi and his name, one of which remained active for four weeks!!!! My pages, which were easily recognisable as advisory and educational pages, were closed in less than 1 hour!!!!!

This pretty much sums up why I challenge these organisations so robustly and (sadly) why I get utterly overwhelmed in the work I have been trying to do for the past fifteen years.

I really do hope people get why I do it!!!