BLOCKED, Outraged and Utterly Mistaken: The New Politics of Comment-Section Entitlement

ENTITLEMENT NOT A HUMAN RIGHT

Somewhere between the invention of the internet and the invention of the all-caps rant, a curious myth took hold: that access to a Facebook comment section is a fundamental human right.

This week’s outrage du jour - a mayor blocking users and disabling comments on a personal page - has been treated by some as if it were the digital equivalent of burning the Magna Carta.

Let’s be blunt. Being blocked on a privately controlled Facebook page is not censorship. It is not repression. It is not a human rights violation. It is, at worst, an encounter with the concept of boundaries.

Freedom of expression - so often invoked, so rarely understood - does not mean the right to colonise someone else’s platform.

It does not guarantee an audience, let alone a captive one. The idea that every public figure must host an open mic for every grievance, conspiracy, and recycled parking complaint is not a principle of democracy. Instead it seems a demand for attention.

Anyone “BLOCKED” is not a martyr.

He/they want to participate in a space out of their control, discovering - perhaps for the first time - that rules apply.

And there are rules. A publicly stated moderation policy is not a trap; it is a line in the sand.

Abuse, misinformation, and relentless bad-faith commentary are not protected speech in a private forum.

They are grounds for exclusion, just as they would be in any civilised setting that hasn’t yet been converted into a shouting match.

Then comes the fatal blow to the outrage narrative: the information is available elsewhere.

Official websites, formal channels, local newspapers with articles by the mayor and others, actual civic processes - all intact, all accessible. Nothing has been hidden. Nothing has been denied. The only thing lost is the ability to perform indignation in a specific comment thread.

This is where the argument collapses entirely. Because once access to information remains untouched, what’s really being claimed is not a denial of rights - but a denial of proximity.

All this illustrates a self-appointed king/queen of grievance, draped in entitlement, demanding to be heard using access to personal pages on Facebook.

Not somewhere. Not anywhere. But exactly where he/she insists.

That is not democracy. It’s just noise and theatre.