Facebook’s War On Free Speech
Earlier this week, I wrote an article on Facebook’s Community Standards allow the promotion of violence against women, following on from some recent satirical memes I’d created on this topic for my page Satiria.
I sent a link to Facebook’s Press Office. They’ve been kind enough to discuss previous things I’ve written about Facebook in the past.
One issue I raised, for example, was how trans activists either within Facebook or with an intimate knowledge of its working, were able to manipulate Facebook’s moderation practices to effectively push dissenting voices off it’s platform.
This time they’ve yet to respond, but clearly someone has been paying attention. The day after I published my article, I found myself unable to post articles to Satiria. I was able to “Report An Issue” using the Facebook page, and posting privileges were soon restored.
Today however, the wrath of Facebook has come down upon me hard.
In a post on Gay Star News, about tone-policing among the LGBT community, I posted an image as an example of how trans activism could be absurdly homophobic. Someone reported this as “hate speech”, and I was immediately given a 30-day ban from all of Facebook. I clicked a link to appeal and this was immediately turned down. This time there is no option to “Report An Issue”
The text that accompanied this image, which Facebook does not show, was criticising and highlighting intolerance — which is allowed under Facebook’s community standards:
Someone from within Facebook is watching me, and making sure that I am subject to the maximum punishment for wrongthink.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on Facebook, pages are able to blatantly breach the Community Standards on glorifying crime — and, of course, it’s entirely routine for Facebook users to continue to promote violence against non-compliant women.
I’ve contacted Facebook’s Press Office again for comment.
UPDATE 6 JUNE: No reply from Facebook — but they did take money from me to advertise a link to this post. Of course, there’s no way to contact their advertising or moderating team to discuss any of this madness…
Roger Dubar is editor of the satirical blog #satiria, on Facebook & Twitter.