Yes, it's been a while since I've done a GunFAIL update here at Daily Kos. But no, I never stopped keeping records on accidental shootings, guns left behind in bathrooms, and the like.
In fact, I began using other social media like Pinterest, Facebook and Tumblr to help sort out the torrent of information, even as weekly GunFAIL updates went on hiatus here. But today, the GunFAIL topic became too hot for Pinterest to handle, and they suspended my account (since reinstated, thank you all very much!), with no notice and no explanation, save a link ...
Head below the fold to find out where.
... to this page:
What's your best guess for why Pinterest suspended the GunFAIL boards?
That's it. That's all I got.
What's now missing? Well, there were the running tallies of GunFAIL episodes of all kinds, for the years 2014 and 2015.
But I was particularly interested in using Pinterest to count and to show the faces, where possible, of the kids under the age of 15 who had been accidentally shot to death. I had collected their stories and photos and compiled them into annual reports for 2013, 2014 and 2015. Why? Because CDC data for that age group put accidental gun deaths at around 60 per year, and that was a number that gun enthusiasts were apparently comfortable dismissing as irrelevant. But in the course of collecting GunFAIL stories, I got the sense (and so did the New York Times) that the number was much higher, and began compiling the stories in one place to prove it. Pinterest seemed like a natural fit for the collection, given that I could illustrate each one with the most important element missing from the statistics: the faces of the dead.
I don't think they were counting on that. But that's the nature of innovation on social media. Or so I thought.
What else was Pinterest (until today) handy for collecting? Stories about just how often people accidentally fired guns at Walmart. (Yes, just at Walmart. We were up to 38 such incidents.) About just how often people accidentally fired their guns while shopping, dining or otherwise going about their public business. About just how often people accidentally fired their guns into their neighbors' homes. And just how often people accidentally fired guns at gun shows, too.
So, was the suspension a mistake? Was Pinterest pressured to take the boards down? Was it trumped-up complaints from gun enthusiasts? Complaints from corporations upset that their brands were tied to accidents that happened on their properties? Possibly from families upset by the re-use of the photos they'd released on the internet?
I don't know yet. I might never know. But I suppose my best bet for finding out is raising a little hell. It's a bit of a "First World problem," losing your Pinterest boards. But yes, I'm a little curious about it.
In the meantime, I've of course saved all the names, ages, hometowns, and photos that went with the stories. So no, the information doesn't die with Pinterest's blunder. You can have a look at some of the faces and stories Pinterest doesn't want you to see on my Twitter page.
1:47 PM PT: We're back. After posting this story, and discussing the same with reporters from The New Republic and Yahoo News, my account and the GunFAIL Pinterest boards that went with them were restored, literally seconds ago.
3:31 PM PT: I've finally gotten word from Pinterest, via their help desk, and their responses to TNR and Yahoo. The claim is, their automated systems detected "spam-like" behavior. So that either means there's SO MUCH GunFAIL out there that I exceeded their spam threshold, or there's something they're not telling us. Avid Pinterest users tell me they post WAY more stuff than I do, on a regular basis, and have never had anything similar happen to them. Plus, of course, if there's one thing GunFAIL has taught me, it's that these stories are remarkably consistent in both volume and pace. It's hard to believe there's anything about today's activity that differs significantly from what's been perfectly acceptable posting behavior in the past. But... there it is.