Posted on 06/14/2024 6:30:39 AM PDT by MtnClimber
When some of our readers tried to share Thursday’s editorial on Facebook, their posts were deleted. This isn’t the first time Big Tech has suppressed our speech and tried to rob us of revenue. In fact, it seems rather routine.
The editorial that Facebook doesn’t like was written under the headline “When Will The Ministry Of Truth Shut Down The Lyin’ Biden Ads?. When one reader (see the editorial’s comments section) tried to share it on Facebook, she “was advised they deleted my post for violating community standards.”
“It’s pretty rich,” she said, “for Facebook to claim an article pointing out how Biden’s ads are misleading is in itself misleading.”
Another whose comments appear under the editorial said he “shared this article” but Facebook deleted it.
We had the same experience. We couldn’t post it on our own I&I Facebook page. So, in effect, those who either regularly read our content on Facebook or who might want to were forbidden to do so.
And it’s not the first time. Google routinely blocks its AdSense ads from appearing on our website. Earlier this year we learned that the company was blocking its ads from appearing on an editorial we published almost exactly three years earlier that was highlighting Trump’s wins as president.
But, as is always the case, the reasons given are gauzy, generic evasions, such as “violating community standards.” But which “community”? And which “standards”?
How about the standard of truth?
I&I showed factually in Thursday’s editorial that Biden’s ads were, in fact, “misinformation.” That is, filled with actual lies and distortions of the truth. Typical in American political campaigns, unfortunately, but especially true today when leftist politicians know they can make false claims and like-minded social media censors will do nothing.
In the case of Facebook, it always denies it “censors” anything. Rather, it merely squelches “misinformation.”
However, as we’ve pointed out before, social media outlets in the past have allowed demonstrable falsehoods, such as the lie that Hunter Biden’s laptop filled with incriminating information was really a Russian disinformation ploy, to spread far and wide.
Meanwhile, truthful claims that Hunter’s laptop and its damning contents were authentic were silenced.
These high-minded claims of protecting against “misinformation” amount to little more than election interference. It’s no accident Facebook’s most rigorous attempts at controlling “misinformation” ever were rolled out in October 2019, a year ahead of the 2020 elections.
“This is BigTech control of news and speech, nationwide, in real time — all in an attempt to control an election,” Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley tweeted at the time.
Facebook further proved its urge to censor conservatives on Jan. 8, 2021, when it banned Trump, a sitting president, “for life,” “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” even after he told supporters to “go home” and promised to support a “peaceful transition” to the Biden presidency.
Well, it looks like it’s happening again. To us, and to others.
With just five months to go, will the social media giants — Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Google, and others — once again stifle Americans’ right to hear all sides of the issues, and not just those on the left?
Having our own truthful posts hidden, deleted, and demonetized by social media violates our right to free speech. But more importantly, they’re violations of your rights as citizens and voters to hear all sides of the political debate.
And it seems the government (State Department) is telling Facebook what to censor. Isn’t that a violation of one of those amendments they swore to uphold against those like themselves who are foreign or domestic.
bttt
I have a solution for Facebook.
FB censors almost every article Hinsdale puts up, calls it “disinformation.
bkmk
Yep, must be an election coming up for facebook to start deleting, claiming misinformation on every post that is not favorable to democrats or this inept administration. I posted an article a few weeks back...IF I remember right it was from the NY Post? Anyway, my comment above the article called the Biden’s “white trash” and a bunch of liars and grifters. Didn’t take long before I got a message from the fake book censors saying I went against community standards and I posted “hate speech”. lol Asked if I wanted to take the post down? Nope. They said they would review my claim about leaving the post....so far I have not heard back from them. My solution now, anytime I put up “hate speech” [calling the Biden’s no better than white trash, etc]....I always include “IMO”. Of course, pretty soon my opinion will be trashed by facebook for who knows what kind of BS they come up with, huh? Yeah, must be an election coming up, huh? smh
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