Silenced Voice

Think We Have Freedom of Expression?- Think Again

I had worked all day on my writing and then on my art drawings to get the writing posted before the deadline and to have my art of the day shared with my followers across all social media platforms I participate in. I’ve been working tirelessly for months to grow a following and monetize my accounts. Diligently, I have met the daily challenges and requirements imposed by each platform, and today was no exception.

It’s very late at night when I usually finish creating my pieces of art, and I begin selecting the drawings or paintings I will post tonight. I start in my usual fashion, from the top to the bottom of my list. Doing this each night for the last several months has become second nature to me, so I have a process I follow. I have seven platforms to post to, three pieces of art daily, and I am finally at my last platform.

I click the widget to enter the fruity social media spin-off of my clock-sounding social network, only to be accosted by five of the ugliest words a creative person can see on their screen. “Your account has been banned.” In small print are the nondescript words, “for community standard violations.” No other explanation is given, and no details. No photo of the drawing or painting they are referring to, either.

Okay, I pop back onto the parent social hub to see if I can dissect this problem, and I find I’ve been banned there as well, for the same reason. I’m not a stranger to this. My drawings have been pulled before for content. It seems the human body is not acceptable subject matter for art, even when all their standards are followed. I never draw pornographic material, no sexual acts, no genitalia of any kind, no violence, and no underage nudity, even if it’s a drawing from a parent requesting a portrait. I’m careful about what I draw, not that I have any interest in the things they don’t permit posting images of. Confusion and a bit of anger are setting in. I need answers.

I tried as many times as I could to get in, to see what had happened or to find an explanation, but I was shut out completely. I had no way to argue my case. I clicked the appeal button on the page that informed me I had been banned. It let me click the link, then took me to another page that said my appeal had been accepted. I didn’t even get to argue my side, respond in writing to the issue, or speak to anyone in person. Let’s face it, there is no human interaction anymore. It’s all bots and routing systems that keep you hitting number after number until you're finally disconnected and have to start over from the top.

My biggest pet peeve is never being able to speak with a human being. What kind of world are we creating? This is where I was all day and into the evening, trying to find a solution to the problem. I didn’t even know what the problem was, and I had no place or avenue to state my case. My page was gone. My sign-in was useless, and everything I tried gave me the same results. No account found, account does not exist, login not found, or no username found. Aggravating as all get out.

I took additional steps, asking my husband and friends to check what they saw on my page. Their replies were all the same: my account had been banned and removed from view. I can’t believe it. I grew up in the USA and was instilled with the belief that we, as citizens, have the right to due process. I was not getting mine.

It was getting late, and I just couldn’t keep up with this insanity. I needed sleep, and there was literally nothing I’d be permitted to do to fix this. I had done my due diligence, emailing ad nauseam and exhausting every avenue I knew to get answers, but I made no headway. A defeatist mentality set in, and I accepted that I might not be able to recover my account. I have other social media, some monetized, so I’d have to concentrate my efforts on those sites and forget these two peripheral accounts. I was really grieving the loss of some friends I had never thought to get emails, addresses, or phone numbers for, and that made me angriest. I did collaborations with other little-known, small-time amateur artists, and they were counting on me for the next collaborative

post in two weeks.

I dislike not being able to count on someone, so I always make sure people can count on me. I do what I say I’m going to do, and I say what I do. This is part of my character, and I take it seriously. This even kept me from keeping my word.

None of this was getting resolved tonight. I decided to delete my Fruity social media account and just move on. In the morning, I’d see what the update was, if any, from the parent company, or whether they would finally reach out to me and deal with the fallout then.

The following morning, I woke up determined to move on and delete the main account if I hadn’t heard any news. I just didn’t want to waste any more of my time. Fortunately, I received an email stating that my account had been reviewed and that there were no violations. I don’t know what that means or why I had even been banned at this point.

I downloaded the secondary app again and logged in. Sure enough, the account was back up and running. I have over 100 messages and comments on my posts, along with new followers to respond to, so this was going to take some time.

After I finished making sure the account was truly back to normal, I tried to log in to the main social network account. I was again confronted with messages that the account does not exist or cannot be found. I tried every conceivable way to log in and had no success. I went back to e-mailing the support team, and again I was informed that my account had been reinstated and that I should be able to log back in. But that was not the case.

Oddly enough, I could access the main account from the offshoot media site and saw that it was live and active. The messages and comments on my drawings and posts were piling up, and I at least wanted to clear them and reply to my followers and friends. This, I found, was not an option. I could only view the account, not interact with it or change anything in it.

I noticed a link to my page on the parent social hub and tried to log in through it, but I was locked out again. There are no words to describe the frustration of being unable to access your own intellectual and creative property, or to tell the people who count on you that you are working on the situation and trying to find a solution.

Again, I sent email after email to the help support messaging desk. And again, I waited. I am not a very patient person, and this was testing my every nerve. There was nothing I could do, so I focused on writing and let the day improve by letting my anxiety come out in prose and poetry.

Several hours later, I asked my husband and friends to check what they would see if they searched for my account page, and they all said the page was back up, including the offending piece. I still could not get in. I did the last and only thing I could think of, which was to consult the oracle, Google, and look for any article on how to get back into a banned account that had been reinstated.

Yet again, I tried what they suggested, and lo and behold, I made it. I got back into my social media account and page. Sure enough, everything looked in order, as if nothing had happened.

It finally hit me, after I cleared over a hundred messages, thanked the tens of new followers I needed to thank, and reviewed the pages’ activities, that this action by these two media companies might have violated my right to freedom of expression.

I was shocked that a simple pastel drawing in an Impressionist style could be removed and result in an account being blocked. There is no way Michelangelo or any artist like Rousseau, Botticelli, or Rubens would have been banned from society for their art. Why was this happening in this modern age, when nudity is on every screen every day? Some of the posts on these very sites were far more questionable and provocative than the artwork.

I wondered what constitutes vulgarity or inappropriateness and who is tasked with making that judgment, especially without due process or consultation. I polled my followers about my drawings or paintings. The responses were all similar. They loved my work and did not, in any way, consider any of my art inappropriate or crossing the line from art into solicitous pornography, hate speech, sexually explicit content, or graphically unartistic depictions.

I found that this doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t always like an artist’s work. In fact, I don’t like most artists’ work. Mainly because it might not match my taste in style, aesthetics, or subject matter. Maybe it’s the colors or the medium I don’t care for. Some I find close to offensive, and even outright offensive. I would never ask that an artist be sanctioned for their way of expressing themselves, or that their work be removed.

A person has the right to view something, like it, dislike it, enjoy it, or walk away. No person can judge the artist for the work, especially without knowledge or understanding of what is in the creator’s creative mind and heart.

As artists, amateur or not, and as writers, published or not, we often use our creative outlets to process trauma, pain, emotions, and love. No one has the right to say that a person who writes or creates an image of their internal struggles or musings is wrong or inappropriate. It’s a slippery slope if it continues.

Censorship in any form is an affront to creativity and catharsis. Everyone has the right to look away or not look at all, to read or not read, but no one has the right to say an artist cannot express themselves in the manner they choose because they, in particular, take offense. If this is the case, we are not free. Many people fought and died so that we could express ourselves as we desire. We may not like what is said or revealed in art. We may not agree with it, but we must allow it, if for no other reason than that it may inspire others to correct a wrong, to take action, to open their wounds and speak out. It is also a direct link and window into the ills that plague our world and the dangers emerging from it. Silencing and censoring voices is a bad precedent and tyrannical.

I will continue to draw what is in my heart and mind, what I see as beautiful or ugly, and what intrigues me or provokes thought. I hope it does the same for the recipients of my finished works. I will do it freely, even if the outlets I use deem me inappropriate or too provocative for their sites. What I will not do is accept being forced to change my form of expression or the extent to which I express it. I will stand up for everyone’s right to do the same. My voice will not be silenced.

(Published by The Inner Catalyst, on Medium, July 2026)

#freedom #writing #creativity #CreativeFreedom #expression #art

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