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Some time ago, one of my younger Facebook friends made an interesting comment to me during one of our private chats. His comment concerned how it seems that the Bill's Bible Basics ministry attracts a lot of older folks, but not too many young people. By "young people", I assume that he meant people around his own age. That is, folks in their twenties and possibly earlier. My friend suggested that I need to do something to try to draw more of the younger generation to the BBB ministry.

Well, I pondered my friend's comment for a few weeks. Then I got rather busy creating honorary memberships on the Bill's Bible Basics Forum for some of my longtime Facebook friends. These are people who have been my friends on Facebook for at least a few years or longer. These are also friends who have shown some level of serious interest in my ministry work for the Lord, as has been demonstrated by their Facebook likes, comments and their sharing my graphics and other materials on their own timelines and Facebook pages.

As some of you may know, part of the process of setting up a new honorary BBB Forum membership account requires that I visit each person's Facebook timeline, in order to gather a little bit of information about them, and also to select one of their profile pics. I then convert the image into a 100 pixel by 100 pixel image, to be used as their avatar on the Bill's Bible Basics Forum. All of this is done in an older version of Adobe Photoshop. Creating these accounts is very time-consuming work, and I can only create about ten new BBB Forum memberships each day, because it really tires me out. After all, I am not a spring chicken anymore.

At any rate, after creating these member avatars for a while, it occurred to me that it would be nice to create a special BBB Forum gallery where all of our forum members could get an idea of what we each look like. Well, at least those members who are not shy about posting their profile pics publicly on Facebook. I thought that such a gallery could help us to feel more of a kindred spirit with each other, and draw us closer together as an online Christian family. The avatars could possibly serve as prayer reminders as well. So, that is what I did, and the BBB Forum Members Gallery came into being.

This is where we get back to my friend's comment from a few weeks ago. To date, due to my health, and my busy schedule, I have only had time to add about one hundred and fifty avatars of the three hundred or so people who I have thus far made honorary members of the Bill's Bible Basics Forum. However, if you go to the gallery and look at the current images which are on display there, you will in fact make an interesting and unavoidable discovery which confirms what my young friend stated.

Most of our current BBB Forum members -- if not everyone -- appear to be in their early thirties, if not older. So what my friend asserted is indeed true. Please note that this is not due to age discrimination on my part. None of my current Facebook friends were accepted as my friends based on their age, gender or nationality. As I have mentioned before, the primary criteria which I have always used in determining whether or not to accept a person's friend request is the contents of their timeline, the information on their "About" page, and how serious of an interest they demonstrate in our Christian faith. That is it.

While I have stated that I do not discriminate based on a person's age when it comes to Facebook friend requests, I do make one exception to this rule. That is when I detect that an individual is very young; meaning in their early teens or even younger. Given my own age, I simply do not feel that it is appropriate for me to accept friend requests from people of such a young age, even if I am preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ and want them to accept Salvation. Please don't jump to conclusions. Keep on reading.

Aside from that, we all know what kinds of wickedness occur every single day on the Internet; from pornography -- both adult and child pornography -- to drug trafficking, to human trafficking, to weapons trafficking, to sexual predation and much more. While I am obviously not engaged in any of those kinds of vile activities, I am nevertheless very protective of the Bill's Bible Basics ministry. As some of my longtime friends know, I have worked very hard for over twenty-five years now to build up my online presence. It has been slow, tedious, hard work involving countless hours on my part, and a serious sacrifice of my health as well. So I am not about to see my endeavors jeopardized in any way; particularly not due to a foolish mistake on my part. I am reminded of what Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew:

"Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."


"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."


Now, imagine if you will, that I unknowingly accept a friend request from a young teen, or someone even younger than that. They may be a real sheep who loves the Lord and who wants to learn more about His Word. But what if their parents are not? What if their parents are in fact complete atheists, or a gay or lesbian couple, or someone who just does not agree with my views and the things that I teach? I am talking about people who are totally demon-inspired, and set on vengeance, due to the fact that I dared to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ to their child, and exposed the sins of the world to that young person. Such people could cause a lot of problems for me and the BBB ministry, if their child is my Facebook friend, and a minor to boot.

Trust me when I say that Facebook would willingly sacrifice me, and my Facebook account, in order to appease that irate parent, and thus protect their online business from further negative fallout. Never forget that Facebook is a business, despite all that silly talk about how much they care about us. Ultimately, every decision that they make is determined by how it affects the profit margin. Obviously, this applies to each of you as well, if you happen to be an uncompromising witness of your faith on the Facebook platform. They will put their business interests before your personal interests. So it seems that just like Jesus, we too are counted as sheep for the slaughter when it comes to the unbelieving world, and their prejudice and rabid hatred towards us and our deeply held Christian beliefs. Consider the following group of verses which confirm these points:

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth."


"The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:"


"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter."


"If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me."


"And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake."


"Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you."


Let's face it. We all know that Facebook is run by liberals and progressives, and that discriminating against Christians and Conservatives and censoring their posts, has increasingly become a regular practice on Facebook, as well as on a number of other liberal-minded social networks. It is a well-known fact that for many years, Mark Zuckerberg claimed to be an atheist. By his own accord, he was raised Jewish; which means that he did not believe in Jesus. It was only a few years ago that Zuckerberg seemed to demonstrate a little more tolerance in regard to people of different religious persuasions. At the time, he made the following online statement when someone questioned him regarding his position as a staunch atheist:

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"No, I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where I questioned things, but now I believe religion is very important."

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My friends, let's be honest. That is not by any means an endorsement of our Christian faith. It is a noncommittal, lukewarm, politically-correct compromise which is meant to appease persons of all religious faiths. It is exactly what you would expect from a person who is in Mark Zuckerberg's position. He is everyone's friend, right? Think again.

While Zuckerberg made that statement, no one can deny that since that time, the discrimination and censorship against Christian and Conservative points of view on Facebook has continued unabated, to the point that it has even become a contentious issue with the US government. As you may know, there has even been talk of breaking up Facebook, along with a few other powerful, tech-oriented businesses. In fact, just today I was reading another news article in which Zuckerberg and his COO, Sheryl Sandberg, were countering the demand to break up their company. So in light of everything that has been going on with Facebook as of late, I have to wonder how much the 2017 statement made by Zuckerberg was meant for public consumption, and to simply dial down the heat. It is also worth mentioning that at that time, Zuckerberg voiced an interest in Buddhism, and not in Christianity.

Aside from his personal position regarding people of faith, we need to realize that Zuckerberg may no longer entirely control the online beast which he created so many years ago in his college dorm room. What I mean by this is that Mark Zuckerberg has a global force of Facebook "policemen" -- or "content monitors" -- who monitor everything that occurs across the Facebook platform. In addition, there are those well-known, secretive, AI-empowered algorithms which control so many different aspects of Facebook. Many of those human monitors are likewise very liberal-minded, and Mark cannot possibly know or control every single thing that they do, or the decisions which they make. So if you make a post which one of the editors does not agree with, it is quite possible that it will be removed -- due to supposedly going against Facebook's "community standards" -- and Mr. Zuckerberg will never even know anything about it. After all, the guy is not God.

If you are wondering exactly how liberal Facebook has become -- as if all of those sickening drag videos you often see in your news feed aren't already enough to convince you of this fact -- then consider the following. Earlier this evening, while looking for something in my Facebook settings, I came across the following unexpected information in a little window in regard to the "About" section. I had never seen this particular window before, and it made my jaw drop:

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If you set your gender to Custom and select one or more genders, you can also select an audience for your custom gender. In addition to your custom gender, you'll choose a Pronoun. The pronoun you select is public. This feature isn't available in all locations.

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If that doesn't convince you how much Facebook caters to the LGBTQ community, nothing will. By the way, I was not able to access the gender feature on my timeline. I don't know if it is due to my location -- as the above states -- or because Facebook has that particular feature disabled for Christians such as myself. At any rate, taking into consideration all of the gender confusion nonsense that's been going on in recent years regarding being non-binary, and choosing the pronoun by which ones wishes to be referred, I can just imagine what is listed under that setting. You will find similar language in Facebook's ads anti-discrimination policy. Consider the following:

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Ads are discriminatory when they deny opportunities to individuals or groups of people based on certain personal attributes such as race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, family/marital status, disability or medical or genetic condition.

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As Christians, we can obviously agree with most of what is being stated there. But clearly, Facebook is bending over backwards to accommodate and appease the LGBTQ community by adding "sexual orientation, gender identity" to their list of attributes. As I think about all of this, the verse that comes to mind is the following:

"That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;"


Or we could say a crooked and perverse -- and very liberal -- social network, my dear friends. Sadly, as we all know, Facebook is obviously not alone in all of this sickening liberalism. If it were not for my desire to be a witness of my faith, and an encouragement to my brethren in the faith, I would not even be a part of Facebook. I have no other reason for being there.

But returning to the previous issue, as I stated earlier, if some irate parent were to complain to Facebook that not only had I become friends with their minor-aged child, but that, God forbid, I was teaching their child certain things which they -- that is, the parent -- didn't agree with, it's quite possible that despite my innocence, Facebook could even shut me down permanently. This has already happened to a number of folks for a variety of reasons, so this is not just some wild conspiracy theory. Many of us already know that Facebook has their own proprietary definition when it comes to the phrase "hate speech". Make no mistake. Some of the things which we teach from the Scriptures are viewed as hate speech by this modern, liberal, sinful world. In fact, just this evening, I read the following on a popular news website. It concerns Facebook's endeavors to remove hate speech from its platform:

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Facebook, facing withering criticism from governments around the world, said Thursday that it had been more aggressive in recent months about scrubbing its platform of hate speech.

In a report the company releases biannually, Facebook also said its automated detection software that scrubs illicit content was improving: It now automatically detects and removes more than half of the hate speech on the platform.

Facebook said it had removed four million hate-speech posts during the first three months of the year, and detected 65 percent of them with artificial intelligence, up from 24 percent the year before.

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So, if we preach against the wickedness of abortion, is that hate speech, Mr. Zuckerberg? If we expose the evils of Islam, is that likewise hate speech? If we boldly speak out against the LGBTQ lifestyle, which God's Word clearly condemns, is that also hate speech? In short, are you saying that anything which the Bible condemns as wrong and sinful, is hate speech in your book, Mr. Zuckerberg? Exactly where does hate speech begin and end for you, Mr. Zuckerberg? As I mentioned before, what is also rather alarming is the fact that a lot of these decisions regarding hate speech are being made, not by human beings, but by AI-empowered algorithms. Machine language is dictating what is hate language and what is not. It kind of reminds me of that 2002 Tom Cruise movie, "Minority Report" where one is basically guilty before being proven innocent. Perhaps the most laughable paragraphs of the entire article were the following two:

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And Facebook sometimes mistakenly removes content that does not violate its policies. Mr. Zuckerberg said Facebook would establish an independent review board that would double-check its removal decisions.

"This independent oversight board will look at some of our hardest cases, and the decisions it makes will be binding," Mr. Zuckerberg said, adding that he and other Facebook executives would not have the power to overrule the oversight board.

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An independent review board? Really? Independent based on who's definition of the word, if I may ask? It seems to me that whenever a government agency, polling service, science institution, news outlet, or some other entity employs the use of the word "independent", it is a warning that they may really mean the exact opposite. If we could dig deep enough, we might discover that the independent board, or independent study, or independent poll, was not so independent after all. It was in fact manipulated in some particular way which is never revealed to the naive, gullible public.

Please also notice how Zuckerberg craftily removes himself and other top executives from liability by stating that even they cannot overrule the decisions made by the review board. That is called passing the buck, and is a very shrewd move indeed on Zuckerberg's part. Of course, Mark is trying to convey the idea of neutrality. But again, that depends a lot on how independent the review board really is.

I am compelled to ask the following question as well. With supposedly over two billion regular users, and with so much user content being removed from Facebook on a daily basis, how in the world is an "independent review board" going to be able to check all "hardest cases" removal decisions in a timely fashion? It would have to be a 24/7/365 job, and it still would not be enough.

In a related article which I found on the PCMag.com website, Facebook Vice President, Guy Rosen, reveals exactly how much user content has supposedly been restored during the first quarter of 2019. The article states that 80,000 user posts were restored, after being mistakenly removed as harassment. But here is the catch. Those posts were only restored after those users had made an appeal to Facebook. In other words, Facebook appears to place more faith in its algorithms than it does in its users. If a user does not appeal, then it is as if Facebook assumes that they are guilty. As I mentioned before, we are guilty until proven innocent. Welcome to the new world of machine intelligence. The next thing you know, SkyNet will be telling us that we are no longer needed, and that we are a drain on the Earth's limited resources, and that we have been targeted for elimination.

The same PCMag article likewise states that during the first quarter of 2019, Facebook also restored over 130,000 pieces of content that were incorrectly flagged as hate speech. In this case, it does not specifically mention if they required an appeal first or not, but I would assume that they did. It also states that when 171,000 users appealed for posts that were taken down due to graphic violence violations, only a total of 23,900 pieces of content were restored. However, the article also notes that an additional 45,900 posts were also restored when Facebook realized its own mistake.

So assuming that these statistics are accurate and truthful -- I will leave that for you to decide -- this means that in all, a total of 279,800 posts were restored by Facebook in the first three months of 2019. However, do you notice what figure is glaringly missing from all of this reporting? We have absolutely no idea exactly how many posts Facebook took down during that same time frame. As such, we cannot clearly determine what actual percentage of posts were restored. Is this an attempt by Facebook to conceal exactly what degree of censorship is going on? And don't forget. The posts which were restored required that a user go through the hassle of the appeal process first. Yes, it is easy enough to do, but nevertheless, it is still a hassle, and places the onus on the user.

Obviously, I cannot prove, or disprove, Facebook's claims, because I do not work for them. However, given the skeptic that I tend to be when it comes to the things of the secular world, I will confess that I have my doubts. One thing which I do know for certain is this. Regardless of what Facebook claims, I have certain Facebook friends who for many months now have been complaining about constantly being thrown in "Facebook Jail", and having their posts constantly being taken down, and not being restored. I know exactly how they feel, because quite a while back -- I believe it was last year -- when I was trying out tagging multiple friends in my posts -- at their request, by the way -- I was constantly being thrown in jail as well. In fact, it got to the point where I was spending more time in jail, than out of jail. It was a very frustrating experience. Finally, I just stopped tagging my friends, because it was not worth the hassle, or the lost time.

On that same subject, and as I have mentioned before, I can tell you with certainty two ways in which you will definitely find yourself being thrown in "Facebook Jail". Both of these have to do with the speed with which you operate. The first one I have already explained to you. If you tag too many of your friends too quickly, you will end up in jail before you know it. Not only that, but if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, each time that you are thrown in jail, it will be for a longer period of time. It can grow from a few hours, to a few days, to a week, to an entire month. So watch out! Don't grow impatient. Don't be stupid. Slow down.

The second sure-fire way of getting yourself blocked is by posting messages too quickly on your friends' timelines. For the record, I discovered some time ago that the posting limit is about twenty per hour. Please note that I am referring to posting a message at the very top of a person's timeline. It seems that adding comments to their posts are not considered in regard to this limit. However, please note that Facebook is constantly changing the hourly and daily quotas, in order to purposely keep abusive users off-guard. In other words, if you have already posted a message on twenty of your friends' timelines, Facebook will then begin to put up the warning box where you have to add the checkmark, in order to prove that you are a real person.

This will continue for a short while. However, if you keep pushing it by trying to post your message on even more of your friends' timelines, eventually the warning message with the checkbox will be replaced by actual CAPTCHAs, where you have to select all of the images which match the query. At this point, you have really entered the danger zone. Based on my experience, you have probably posted your message on thirty or even forty different timelines. Suddenly, up comes the message which says that you have been blocked for going too fast. Poor you. You should have stopped while you were ahead. By the way, in case you didn't know it, CAPTCHA is an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart".

One way to get around this, is by slowing down, and allowing a minimum of at least four or five minutes between each post that you make on your friends' timelines. Obviously, the longer space of time you allow between each post, the longer you will be able to last, and the more you will be able to post. However, keep in mind that Facebook has daily quotas as well. Back then, when I was figuring out all of this, I believe the quota was around two hundred posts per day. I have no idea what it is now, which is just the way Facebook likes it.

Returning to the issue of friend requests, allow me to also mention here that while I will not accept friend requests from persons who are obviously very young, this does not mean that they cannot access everything that I share in regard to the Scriptures. For the record, my timeline, page, and even the BBB group are all set to public. As such, even if I do not accept a friend request from a very young person, they still have access to everything which I publish online. They simply will not be able to comment on it, on Facebook. In fact, all of my Bible study materials are freely available on the Bill's Bible Basics website at www.billkochman.com. If it is on my Facebook timeline, page or in the BBB group, it will also be found somewhere on the BBB website as well. That is where all of my content originates in the first place, so please check it out, and avoid Facebook's hassles altogether.

As I have explained before in articles such as "The Parable of the Sower: Salvation and Service", my approach to making known the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to scatter the seed of the Word far and wide -- as Jesus points out in said parable -- and then to trust God for the outcome, and the fruit that He wants it to bear. After all, only God the Father can draw people to Himself by His Spirit. It is not a work of human endeavor. I am reminded of verses such as the following:

"ALL THAT THE FATHER GIVETH ME shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out . . . No man can come to me, EXCEPT THE FATHER WHICH HATH SENT ME DRAW HIM: and I will raise him up at the last day . . . And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father."


"‭‭And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,‭ ‭‭Praising God, and having favour with all the people. AND THE LORD ADDED TO THE CHURCH DAILY SUCH AS SHOULD BE SAVED.‭"


"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."


"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."


"And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. MY FATHER, WHICH GAVE THEM ME, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand."


"I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for THEM WHICH THOU HAST GIVEN ME; for they are thine . . . And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name THOSE WHOM THOU HAST GIVEN ME, that they may be one, as we are . . . Father, I will that they also, WHOM THOU HAST GIVEN ME, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, WHICH THOU HAST GIVEN ME: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world."


"Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, THE LORD KNOWETH THEM THAT ARE HIS. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity."


Please go to part two for the continuation of this series.

⇒ Go To The Next Part . . .

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