Politics

Facebook censors trailer for Dinesh D’Souza’s ‘Hillary’s America’

Facebook censors now target Dinesh D'Souza's movie.On Monday, I got word that Facebook, the social media site now known as the world’s most dangerous censor, struck again.  This time, according to my source, the site is preventing users from sharing a post that contains a trailer for Dinesh D’Souza’s popular movie, “Hillary’s America: The Secret History of the Democratic Party.”

We checked it out, and sure enough, the post cannot be shared on Facebook.  And the reason the site gives is maddening:

Facebook censors Dinesh D'Souza's trailer.Got that?  According to Facebook, the article and the trailer it contains are simply too popular for the liberal tyrants at the social media giant.  And so they revert to form and censor it.

Keep in mind that D’Souza’s movie “cracked into film’s top 10 winners at the box office for the weekend,” according to USA Today, which added:

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

Hillary’s America has landed in the 10th spot with $3.7 million in 1,217 theaters for a two-week total of $3.8 million, according to comScore.

Hillary’s America has landed in the 10th spot with $3.7 million in 1,217 theaters for a two-week total of $3.8 million, according to comScore.

So a reasonable person might well conclude that a trailer for the movie would be quite popular.  But as we’ve seen time and again, “reason” and “logic” rarely comes into play where Facebook is concerned.

But there’s more.

Journalist and producer Jeremy Oliver happens to be an outreach coordinator for the documentary.  After posting links encouraging members of a Facebook group to watch and review the film the night it premiered, the site imposed a “temporary restriction” on his posting permissions.

GOT News reported:

While none of his posts have been removed from any groups, no one can share them. Oliver can’t join new groups, post in groups he belongs to, or comment on his posts until August 5 — even to groups that he’s an administrator of and belonged to for years.

When a group member asked Oliver, “How can I share this???” below his post and he tried to like or reply, a message from Facebook popped up and read: “Failed to like post. The action attempted has been deemed abusive or is otherwise disallowed. To keep from getting blocked again, please make sure you’re read and understand Facebook’s Community Standards.”

Facebook also removed a video showing the reactions of those watching the movie.

The problem, as we’ve noted before, is that social media sites like Facebook are allowed to censor Constitutionally-protected speech thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

That’s right, the federal government sanctions this type of censorship.  Worse yet, the law protects these sites from any legal repercussions, which is why the Department of Justice was sued on behalf of Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer.

If we had a Congress that actually supported and defended the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, this would not be happening.  Sadly, it seems members of Congress like their campaign contributions from Facebook more than they like the Constitution…

Incidents like this, by the way, are the reason why Adina Kutnicki, and investigative journalist based in Israel, and I wrote “Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad.”  The book has been endorsed by Geller and is set to be published this fall.

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Joe Newby

A 10-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, Joe ran for a city council position in Riverside, Calif., in 1991 and managed successful campaigns for the Idaho state legislature. Co-author of "Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad," Joe wrote for Examiner.com from 2010 until it closed in 2016 and his work has been published at Newsbusters, Spokane Faith and Values and other sites. He now runs the Conservative Firing Line.

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