This is a strange story. Last night, Jeanette Deutermann, leader of the opt out movement on Long Island, discovered that her Facebook page was blocked and all of its contents had disappeared. Was it an accident? Was it malicious hacking?
It it turns out that the same thing had happened to several other outspoken critics of corporate reform.
You may recall that I started posting podcasts called “Truth for America,” created by Julian Vasquez Heilig and Jameson Brewer. These critical accounts of TFA were posted on YouTube. Several readers commented that the podcasts were blocked. I contacted Julian, he called a lawyer who is a member of the NPE board, and it took a few days to get them open again.
I will be reposting Juian’s podcasts again, starting today. At noon, Julian explains what happened. At 1, the first podcast will be posted.
If this flurry of cyber problems is caused by hacking, I hope someone investigates soon. We can’t allow vandals, whatever their motive, to block free speech.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It all confirms that opt out is one of the nerve centers of the reform movement. But it also empowers parents and students who want a “choice.” I call it testing choice, and I see no problem wirh getting rid of the 95 percent ESSA provision so we can get on with the practice of teaching and learning, rather then testing and evaluation.
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Was it vandals or moguls?
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Left Coast Teacher,
Hard tomorrow tell the difference!
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This is outrageous!
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Tomorrow’s a big day Diane for NY . Tell everyone in the 9th district to vote for Todd . I know you endorsed him already but we need everyone motivated to spread the word . Tks for everything
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When all else fails, silence the messenger! They must be getting nervous.
Hope everyone made it home safely. I enjoyed meeting the folks who run the blogs and are the backbone of the anti-reform movement.
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It’s called a “Denial of Opt-out attack”
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Obviously the Facebook hacking/free-speech suppression explains why opt-out was flat this year.
http://nydailynews.com/new-york/opt-out-rates-level-state-math-reading-exams-article-1.2603418
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Tim, the state has not released a count. News day polled districts on Long Island and found that more than 50% of eligible students opted out. Other reports are scattered but it appears that the number will be at least as high as last year,perhaps higher. That’s impressive. When activist parents get angry, elected officials should take notice.
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And NOW…after all other efforts have failed, they’re moving into Sabotage: Not too surprised as this is what desperate and very scared people do when they perceive that their $$$ Making Machinery is being threatened and their carefully crafted plans foiled.
I advise anyone who has experienced this type of cyber attack—or any of us who have played and activist role in education, to do the following:
1) Make sure EVERYTHING you have is Backed Up! In more than one way: I have THREE (3) offsite backup services, and I recommend ones such as Crashplan, Backblaze and iDrive are three I would recommend and I personally use the first two, so if one goes, I’d still have another. I also use Dropbox but it takes a bit more set-up time and maintenance than the other three.
I also own a free-standing, external hard drive with 4TB of memory, and so my entire family can use it for quite some time.
2) Report any and all such incidents to the appropriate authorities wherever it occurred (Facebook, or wherever it happened, or, worst of all, on your own computer’s database.)
3) Invest in a firewall, encode your data on a regular basis AND CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD at least 4 or 5 times a year, and use the most hard to remember and duplicate password; services like Dashlane are inexpensive and will help make your passwords far harder to hack and easier for you to remember and use.
Remember folks, these people are angry and scared and they WILL get back at us in any way that they can. But take steps to protect everything you have and be aggressive in informing the authorities ASAP and pushing them to take this type of crime seriously.
The people doing this need to know that they’ll be facing significant civil and criminal consequences for this behavior. No retreat on this!
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This is indeed a strange coincidence. I send out via email a weekly newsletter containing links to various blogs in the hopes of educating people (mostly teachers) about what is going on in the world of education. I compose my newsletter on my tablet and then forward it to my school account using my Yahoo account, where a listserv has been set up for me to spread my “politics”. Over the past several weeks, Yahoo has returned these newsletters to me, stating they were blocked. I looked through them thinking some offensive language may have triggered this, but I can’t find anything. I hate to be paranoid, but maybe there is a connection to what others are experiencing.
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Oops. Wrong thread.
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OK, so now, you are asking ME if I think algorithms can determine the circumspection of human thought? You know the answer to that.
Government block: FAIL
Tech mogul block: FAIL
Computer algorithm block: FAIL
Right wing nut in his underwear, in his basement, flagging block: FAIL
Hired flaggers: FAIL
Bots: FAIL
Hackers: FAIL
Common Core: FAIL
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Twice.
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Facebook “blocks” can get triggered when you post too rapidly, your posts are flagged or identified by Facebook’s filters as spam, or if large numbers of people are flagging your posts as unwelcome or annoying. Possibly for other reasons, too.
https://www.facebook.com/help/116393198446749
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FLERP, that policy makes it easy for a coordinated effort to shut down anyone’s account or posts by lodging multiple complaints, even totally without merit
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It may not even require a very coordinated effort.
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I had mine blocked a month ago when I posted a “Parent Bill of Rights”. I’ve been posting articles on Facebook for going on two years. Many of them at lightning speed compared to how I was posting that day. Several bloggers are experiencing this lately. I notified Diane about this, but I guess I wasn’t worthy of an article! 😉
But seriously, this is happening a lot lately. Facebook usually sends someone a warning first if they are posting stuff too fast. But when it comes to controversial education posts that make sense but not to the powers that be, censorship prevails.
Diane, how come you never write about Delaware Governor Markell? He is the top of the heap with education reform. Our State Board of Education is under what is called “Sunset Review” for next year based on their absolute blundering on education matters. Our Department of Education is a train wreck.
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Kevin,
I don’t know enough about Delaware to write about it.
Why don’t you write a post to bring us up to date?
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Flerp, So it wouldn’t require a very coordinated effort and therefore, you’re saying it would only require a loosely coordinated effort? You’re right. For a Zuckerberg or a Gates, it wouldn’t require much effort at all.
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It could have been caused by a single person who went on a flag-rampage, like the people who tear fliers off telephone poles. Or it could have been Facebook’s algorithms.
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So, was it a profiteer of privatization or a political nut or a group or an agency or a foundation or a combination of the above? We’ll never know. But it must stop.
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I don’t expect it will stop, given that there’s no shortage of Web Rage and that Facebook is not the ACLU. On the plus side, I would bet dollars to donuts that these Facebook users have their posting privileges back within a day or so.
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FLERP, I don’t share your sense of “who cares?” Having your account hacked is no laughing matter. It happens with increasing frequency, sometimes because hackers like doing it, sometimes because they want to steal your passwords and credit cards, and sometimes to silence you. What part of that is funny to you?
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I don’t recall saying anything was “funny.” But there’s a difference between moderating and “hacking.” “Hacking” implies that the hacker had no right of access, to begin with.
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No, hacking is when someone gains access to your account, without authorization, and alters it or deletes it. I didn’t say you thought it was funny. I thought you were awfully casual about the seriousness of hacking. As someone who writes, I find it threatening to my free speech and privacy. As someone who guards her checking account and credit card numbers, I find it to be dangerous thievery.
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Facebook has authorized access to Facebook users’ accounts. Thus, when Facebook deletes content that a user has posted, Facebook is not “hacking” that user’s account, any more than you are “hacking” my “account” when you delete a comment of mine on this blog.
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And Flerp, a “single person on a flag rampage” is not “moderation”. Whatever happened it cannot possibly be excusable.
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“a ‘single person on a flag rampage’ is not “moderation'”
That was part of my point. “Moderation” is the sum of all the things that Facebook does to monitor the content of Facebook. That’s different from a single person who goes around flagging comments as spam or inappropriate.
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Aargh! Again, Facebook blocking OptOut is wrong. Wrong! Immoral. Unethical. Not democratic. Not free speech. That is tech moguls vandalizing public education.
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And your conclusion would be the same if you learned this was something that was automatically and temporarily triggered by spam-filtering algorithms or the flagging of posts by individual users?
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OK, so now, you are asking ME if I think algorithms can determine the circumspection of human thought? You know the answer to that.
Government block: FAIL
Tech mogul block: FAIL
Computer algorithm block: FAIL
Right wing nut in his underwear, in his basement, flagging block: FAIL
Hired flaggers: FAIL
Bots: FAIL
Hackers: FAIL
Common Core: FAIL
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No, not what I was asking.
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And, you know, Shillary just won New York. I had a moment to celebrate Vergara a few days ago. I still support OptOut New York. Now, I need some time to mourn Bernie 2016. Bye for now.
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Any updates on this?
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After a two-year investigation, a 60 Minute segment on Sunday, April 17, 2016 revealed how easy it is to hack anyone, anywhere on any device linked to the internet—except expensive encrypted phones (etc.) that only work when communicating with other expensive encrypted devices.
I suggest that anyone who reads this comment watch that segment to learn just how risky it is. Do not take it for granted that what you say or text using the Internet is not being watched by someone who thinks they are above the law. For instance, the oligarchs funding the war on public education and their bought and paid for minions.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-hacking-your-phone/
Watch the 60 Minutes Overtime videos for this segment too.
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Given the horror stories that people have revealed about being hacked, I really wonder why anyone would do anything “mission critical” on a mobile phone/device (I am assuming that the same potential injuries apply to any device using wi-fi). Paper and pencil may on the verge of a renaissance.
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