To be clear this website and Facebook page has one Admin, Glenn Douglas, a Londonderry resident. This site was started in 2006 and has followed local politics for almost 20 years. See About TownUnderground for a brief history.
This week, after warning a Facebook that they may be blocked from the TownUnderground Facebook page for blocking the Admin of the page I receive the response below. The response was in two parts. The first half, not posted here, claims that this page only holds Democrats accountable and does not report on town Republicans, apparently giving them a pass. I’ll let readers decide if this site is defending the right-wing while attacking the left-wing or not.
The second part of the response, posted below, deals with why the commenter assumes I proposed blocking users and claims that I’m border line ‘cyber-bullying‘.
Although the Town Underground Banning Users was published in 2023 I never did block any users.
A response from a commenter who was warned about blocking the Town Underground Admin:
Honestly, I don’t care about your warnings because your aims and bias with this page couldn’t be more obvious. And let’s be absolutely CRYSTAL CLEAR:
1) You will be demonstrating the PINNACLE OF HYPOCRISY as you yourself complain about transparency but block people from commenting. And you’ll be blocking them not because they are posting spam, profanity, anonymous, or otherwise objectionable content on this page, but for a different reason entirely: you disagree with them.
2) Your policy is a solution in search of a problem. As you’ve seen and demonstrated, you are FULLY CAPABLE of viewing/ moderating/ engaging with such posts. In fact you’ve even shown that you can tag those commenters. The legitimacy of your argument is specious at best. Stop pretending your user ban policy solves any other problem except censoring viewpoints you don’t like.
3) You have NEVER asked the most conspicuous question “Why are people blocking my personal profile?” And here’s what I’ll share with you and your readership, Glenn… because your activity with your personal account approaches the realm of cyber-bullying, and it’s only gotten worse over the years.
So like I said, Glenn – go ahead and do whatever the hell you’re gonna do. Because after you’ve already engaged in so many mental gymnastics, what’s another backflip?
TownUnderground Admin, Glenn Douglas, response is below:
In response to #1. That’s your opinion, in the two years that I’ve had the policy I never followed through on the warning because I’m not a fan of blocking people.
In response to #2. Facebook has changed the options for Admins to respond to those that block them, it still a pain to see comments.
In response to #3
You continue to make false statements, claims of cyberbullying, harassment etc. You have never shown a single post that can corroborate your statements. In all the years I’ve been on Facebook, I’ve received one warning by Facebook and that was for using the term ‘keyboard warrior’ so if I were engaged in ‘cyber-bullying’ I’m sure my account would have been temporarily suspended or flagged.
You have had my account blocked for at least two years, so If I were cyber-bullying you would not be able to see any comments that I made anyway, so I doubt your claim that cyber-bullying has ‘only gotten worse over the years’
In general I’ve found I have been blocked by people who don’t like to be corrected when they post incorrect and misleading information regarding local politics. They block others because they cannot discuss differences in opinion and prefer the ability to push their agenda without resistance.
In conclusion I suppose running a public site and posting about local politics will garner a number of varied responses. I do not believe this or myself has engaged in cyber-bullying, but accusation go with the territory. I’m not a fan of Facebook, simply because it allows users to hide in the shadows by createing fake accounts, and blocking others who disagree with them. The TownUnderground has not blocked a single users, the site has surprisingly Facebook Bot and spammer free.
For now the site is open to anyone to comment on.
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Town Underground Banning Users