Facebook and Censorship

I have a friend that had his Facebook account frozen in 2012 for supporting traditional marriage. Most of his posts were about his family but some were admonishing the Church to do its job and not compromising on biblical values. The account is still frozen and since then he created two more pages, one is Free Rev X’s webpage and the other is his initials.

Some people that I know recently released a movie favorable to the Second Amendment called Targeted. Their posts about the movie were routinely blocked and deleted by Facebook. How can you use social media for publicity when they delete your point of view just because of the subject matter?

Facebook has no ombudsman or contact email to appeal, they just ban and then you’re toast.

Lest you think this is an isolated couple of cases, the following excerpts will prove enlightening. Both articles quoted below are related but each is worth reading in their own right. As you’re reading, remember that Michael Savage’s mantra is borders, language, and culture; so is Donald Trump’s.

Trump and Facebook

“Some of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s posts on Facebook have set off an intense debate inside the social media company over the past year,” The Wall Street Journal reports. Some employees argued that “certain posts about banning Muslims from entering the U.S. should be removed for violating the site’s rules on hate speech, according to people familiar with the matter.”

In the end, those employees did not prevail: “The decision to allow Mr. Trump’s posts went all the way to Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who ruled in December that it would be inappropriate to censor the candidate.”

The story the goes on to state:

The implication would seem to be that there is one standard for presidential candidates and another for ordinary Facebook users. Had you published exactly the same proposal and somebody complained, Facebook might have censored you.

Link: Facebook and Free Speech: They won’t censor Trump but might censor you

Here’s another incident of Facebook censorship

Although the post doesn’t mention it specifically, much of this feedback likely came as a result of a recent incident in which Facebook deleted posts containing an iconic Vietnam War image of 9-year-old Kim Phuc running down the road naked after her village was bombed.

Not only did Facebook delete the original image after a Norwegian newspaper editor uploaded it as part of a series on war photography, but the site deleted the editor’s post about the deletion as well. It then blocked his account, and even deleted a post by Norway’s prime minister, who protested Facebook’s censorship of the image.

Link: Facebook Says It Still Isn’t a Media Company Despite Deciding What’s Newsworthy

Activists and political dissidents are also familiar with having their posts and even their accounts disappear from Facebook without warning. Investigative journalist Eliot Higgins has talked about how Facebook’s deletion of pages about violence in Syria has prevented journalists like him from collecting important information about the war there.

Link: Facebook Says It Still Isn’t a Media Company Despite Deciding What’s Newsworthy

Facebook is willing to censor the Prime Minister of Norway and wishes in could censor Trump and those that agree with him; only when they get embarrassed by bad publicity do they back down from their Liberal bent. For their corporate culture, it’s more important to not be offended by hearing contrary views than to allow the free exchange of ideas.