Tag: facebook

Facebook is banning anyone charged (not convicted) with participating in January 6 US Capitol riot

Facebook has revealed that it will ban anyone who’s charged in connection with the riot at the US Capitol on January 6 and may start “fact-checking” claims that the riot was staged.

In an article detailing how Alan Hostetter, a man who has been charged with obstructing official government proceedings and breaching restricted government property, was banned from Facebook and Instagram within hours of posting a video describing the January 6 riot as a “false flag” and a “fakesurrection” because he believed infiltrators were in the crowd, The Washington Post notes that:

“Facebook says that it does not allow people charged in the insurrection on the platform and that it may fact-check claims that the riot was staged.”

In the case of Hostetter, the prosecutors do not allege that he was violent or entered the Capitol building but claim that he “pushed through the area that the law enforcement officers had been blocking, moved up the stairs onto a structure erected for the Inauguration, and continued moving on to the Upper West Terrace.”

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Facebook bans propaganda expert Professor Nicholas O’Shaughnessy

You may now be able to discuss coronavirus origins on Facebook – because the current US administration happened to say so – but it appears people are still most decidedly banned from discussing their own scientific work – if it happens to be related to how exactly Facebook goes about censoring and canceling people.

That circle is now complete for renowned UK academic Nicholas O’Shaughnessy, an information and propaganda control researcher, who has been presented with an abrupt, but “lifetime” ban on the platform – for posting about his own research that has in the meanwhile been cited by the academic community.

On June 26, reports say, this professor emeritus at two London University colleges and a Cambridge Quondam fellow was informed that his account got banned. Facebook at least was “egalitarian” here in that it provided the noted academic with no more explanation about what he had supposedly done wrong than it does any of its “ordinary” censorship victims – beyond accusing them of violating unspecified “community standards.”

But the note did have a tone of sinister finality to it, reading, “unfortunately, we won’t be able to reactivate it (the account) for any reason. This will be our last message regarding your account.”

And because even after failing in his attempts to pry the reason for his banning from Facebook’s cold censorship hands, the professor, like the rest of us, is now left guessing why this happened.

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‘Pretty Weird’: Facebook Now Sending Warnings to Users About Potentially ‘Extremist’ Friends

Facebook users have recently reported being sent warning messages from the social media giant relating to “extremists” or “extremist content.”

“Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?” one of the purported messages read. “We care about preventing extremism on Facebook. Others in your situation have received confidential support,” it adds before offering the button to “Get Support,” which ostensibly leads to another Facebook page about extremism.

Redstate editor Kira Davis, who said was sent a screenshot of the message from a friend, wrote: “Hey has anyone had this message pop up on their FB? My friend (who is not an ideologue but hosts lots of competing chatter) got this message twice. He’s very disturbed.”

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Facebook censors those who spread ‘misinformation,’ but looks the other way while pimps abuse children

Before losing a recent landmark court case, Facebook attempted to distance itself from the human trafficking taking place on its platform. If only it were as hands-on about child sex crimes as it is about political speech.

The Texas Supreme Court ruled on Friday that Facebook can be held liable for the conduct of pimps and traffickers on its platform – a landmark decision that opens the firm up to further legal action from a trio of teenage trafficking victims. 

In the suit, filed in 2018, the three young women accused the company of running “an unrestricted platform to stalk, exploit, recruit, groom, and extort children into the sex trade.” One was 15 when an older man contacted her on Facebook, offered her a modeling job, photographed her, posted the pictures on the now-defunct BackPage website, and prostituted her to other men, leading her to be “raped, beaten, and forced into further sex trafficking.” The other two girls were 14, and reported almost identical experiences, with one openly pimped out for “dates” on Instagram, a Facebook subsidiary.

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Babylon Bee CEO says satirical site ‘punching back’ against liberal media, Big Tech censorship

“Facebook recently announced they’ll be moderating satire to make sure it doesn’t ‘punch down.’ Anything that punches down—that is, anything that takes aim at protected targets Facebook doesn’t want you joking about—doesn’t qualify as ‘true satire,’” Dillon wrote. “In fact, they’ve made it clear they’ll consider jokes that ‘punch down’ to be hatred disguised as satire.” 

Dillon noted that Slate recently published a piece that accused the Bee of punching down. 

“This is not a coincidence. Having failed in their effort to lump us in with fake news, the media and Big Tech are looking for new ways to work together to deplatform us. They now hope to discredit us by saying we’re spreading hatred—rather than misinformation—under the guise of satire,” Dillon wrote. “But we’re not punching down.’ We’re punching back.”

Dillon feels “the left’s new prohibition of ‘punching down’ is speech suppression in disguise” and blasted anyone who plays along. 

“It’s people in positions of power protecting their interests by telling you what you can and cannot joke about. Comedians who self-censor in deference to that power are themselves a joke,” he wrote. 

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Emails Show Biden Campaign Demanding Facebook Censor Posts on Election Integrity

A number of emails seen by CNN — which uses them to make the case that the platform isn’t censoring enough — show that the Biden campaign repeatedly pressured Facebook to censor posts from the Trump campaign and its supporters about election integrity.

CNN’s own reporting confirms that Facebook changed its policies following the email exchange with Biden officials, yet goes on to quote Democrat activists who complain that the platform is still not censoring enough conservative content.

One post that the Biden campaign tried to have censored during the 2020 election was a video from Donald Trump Jr. in September 2020 calling for supporters to monitor early voting and counting boards.

Biden campaign officials tried to characterize the video as a call for violence, because Don Jr used the term “army” to refer to the volunteer effort, claims that were rebuffed by Facebook.

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