It seems that despite assurances from executives at Facebook, the world’s largest social media site — increasingly known as the world’s most dangerous censor — pages and posts that fall somewhere to the right of center continue to be targeted for deletion. On Thursday, the Libertarian Republic reported that libertarian and conservative pages were unpublished over posts critical of liberals and liberalism.
In one report, the Libertarian Republic said the “fan-favorite Occupy Democrats Logic” Facebook page, a site “focused on debunking and refuting content from Occupy Democrats, a left-wing page notorious for their inaccurate statements,” was unpublished over a meme moderators didn’t like — specifically one that pointed out the left’s double-standard on religion:
The Libertarian Republic added:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Upon logging into Facebook, this message was displayed for the crew at ODL. Only a few days later, the page was permanently removed.
Greg, owner and founder of ODL, contacted TLR to help raise awareness of his page’s disappearance. In the statement Greg gave, he recommended people like his new back-up page. He, and his fellow admins Tommy and Beni are grateful for those who followed him and liked the backup.
Greg believes his post doesn’t violate any of the terms and conditions. Upon examination of the community guidelines, it appears he is correct. Of course, there are those including some in the liberty movement who believe Facebook should be able to run its site the way it wants to.
Attempts to access the page resulted in this:
A backup page has been created and can be seen here.
Days later, the site said in a separate report, Being Libertarian’s Facebook page was yanked. According to Eric July, the page was pulled over a photo that “pointed out Progressive inconsistency.”
“It seems as if every other day a growing libertarian or even conservative page gets taken down. Facebook isn’t even hiding their political leanings anymore,” July added.
Unfortunately, added a post at Poor Richard’s News, “this is becoming the norm now. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and others aren’t just banning indecency, violent rhetoric, illegal communications (such as the planning of crimes) or threats. They’re banning opinions. Legitimate opinions held by half (or more) of the country. Again, Facebook can do what it wants, but this isn’t a good road to go down, in my opinion.”
The Libertarian Republic noted:
The issue is not one of freedom of speech per se, but rather, proper application of a policy. When creating a page on, you agree to follow and respect community guidelines. While these guidelines are subject to change, Facebook and many other social media platforms notify their users once the guidelines have changed. Facebook’s community guidelines do not state they will censor you for your political opinions, rather, they will remove posts that are harassing, illegal, and unethical. Because Facebook and ODL had an agreement and ODL was removed despite not violating said agreement, is Facebook really within its right to censor the page?
The answer to that question, unfortunately, is “yes,” under current federal law. As Adina Kutnicki, an investigative journalist based in Israel, and I note in our upcoming book, “Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad,” Section 230 of the 20-year-old Communications Decency Act has been interpreted by the courts to say that social media sites can censor even constitutionally-protected speech with zero consequences.
You read that right — social media sites can essentially do whatever they want to whomever they want at any time for any reason or no reason at all. And they can do it with zero legal consequences (trust me on this — I know from first-hand experience). Worse yet, the federal government has sanctioned it.
That section of the law, by the way, is now the subject of a lawsuit filed on behalf of Pamela Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, Robert Spencer and their respective websites. Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee the court will decide in their favor.
This is why we called on Congress to immediately amend the law to restore online free speech protection.
Until that happens, the beatings will continue…
Related:
- Lawsuit: Federal government lets Facebook, Twitter, YouTube censor ‘anti-Islam’ speech
- Facebook suspends account of former military K-9 handler who said he’s not voting for Clinton
- Facebook gives conservative user 30-day ban for posting nothing
- Facebook shuts down pro-veteran, pro-law enforcement ‘Tactical Sh*t’ page
- Facebook suspends Daily Caller journalist over Sylville Smith meme
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