Either Facebook’s spam filters are completely out of whack or political free speech is being actively censored on the social network.
What’s happening: On Sun. Aug. 14, liberal page administrators and bloggers in my network started spreading the word that they had been blocked from posting ANY content on ANY other wall for 15 days. No prior warning was given.
The offenders are charged with posting links to news/opinion articles – such as this liberal’s guide to Republican talking points – a small number of times to LIKE-MINDED pages with which they regularly interact. (Some reported making posts to as few as 4 other pages before being suspended – for 15 days – with no warning!) I’ve also been alerted that Facebook has revoked some administrator’s posting privileges for sharing links to their liberal Facebook page on the walls of other liberal pages.
The slap:
Facebook indicates these activists have been posting “spam and irrelevant” content. So, Facebook seems to be deciding for community pages what is spam or irrelevant before the actual page administrators are ever able to see – or re-share – the content.
A check of Facebook’s community standards confirms that NONE of the blocked content or pages I’ve heard about have violated ANY of these rules (engaging in hate, violence, phishing, theft, spam for commercial purposes, etc.)
Is it Facebook’s Fault?
This isn’t the first time a Facebook-related free speech restraint has come up on my radar, and that’s why I’m not biding my time before I talk about this. People should know what’s going on so Facebook can isolate and rectify the errors that are causing unfair censorship.
The previous red flag: A few weeks ago, I came across this webpage that catalogues Obama’s accomplishments (with citations). When I went to share it on my wall I was blocked from doing so.
The explanation: The link had been reported as “abusive or spammy” content. No one else can post the above blog link to their Facebook wall either – even now as I write. Even though I and others contacted Facebook to appeal that block as a violation of political free speech, Facebook never responded or unblocked the link. Therefore, this list of Obama’s accomplishments seems to be permanently banned from Facebook – and for no good reason. Remember that just because you may not share a favorable view of Obama, that doesn’t mean the content should be censored. People have a right to information!
Or is it Right-Wing Trolls?
I am willing to give Facebook the benefit of the doubt. It’s entirely possible that Facebook’s overly sensitive spam trigger is a bug that Facebook will rectify pronto.
Of course, another explanation has occurred to me. Right-wing trolls might be gaming the spam reporting feature in order to trigger Facebook into blocking populist information from spreading.
I am talking about the same type of right-wing vandals that:
- place fake robocalls to disrupt voting,
- run spoiler candidates in Democratic primaries,
- turn Wikipedia pages into propaganda, and
- enact unconstitutional voter suppression laws that literally prohibit people from learning where their correct voting location is.
I guess they don’t think they can win without playing dirty.
And back to Facebook …
Then I considered a more disturbing explanation after I read a Wall Street Journal article. What if the right amount of pressure has been put on employees of one of the world’s most powerful social networks to keep liberal free speech quiet?
Mark Zuckerberg himself has no bones about saying that free speech is a negotiable. From the WSJ:
“Maybe we will block content in some countries, but not others,” said Adam Conner, a Facebook spokesperson. “We are occasionally held in uncomfortable positions because now we’re allowing too much, maybe, free speech in countries that haven’t experienced it before.”
I must ask: Is America now one of the countries where you’ve decided to block free speech content?
Solutions
Facebook: Please don’t start to enforce the notion that there is “too much free speech” in America. We are using your site as a message board, we’re in this to help inform others, there are thousands of liberal pages, and we all want to share content with each other.
So, please:
- Undo the draconian 15-day posting suspensions for sharing news articles with the welcoming walls of like-minded community pages.
- Adopt a more lenient policy for how often users can post articles to other community pages before being labeled as a spammer.
- Consider investigating users who frequently report content as spam/abuse. Realistically, people should only rarely have the need to report spam/abuse on someone else’s community page.
- Set spam triggers for posting to community pages based on whether a significant number of page administrators label content as spam, not based on reports from random visitors to the page who might be gaming the system.
- Audit the content that Facebook employees ban. If, as you say, someone is reviewing the content I’ve linked to here to decide whether it meets community standards and then ruling to ban it, there’s a good case that they are doing so for political motives.
Our country is at risk of losing the rights and dignities of its middle class.
Don’t help the wealthy and powerful crush us on Facebook. Now that Citizens United has given corporations free speech (in the form of anonymous political donations), don’t limit the People’s First Amendment Rights.
Where is OUR Arab Spring?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Visit The Liberal Lamp Post on the web:
The Liberal Lamp Post – @LiberaLLamp on Twitter – On Facebook
I have been blocked as well – starting on the very day you mentioned in your article. I own two Facebook pages:
1. WE the PEOPLE rise up: http://www.facebook.com/pages/WE-the-People-Rise-Up/253847734630065
2. WE the PEOPLE Petition: http://www.facebook.com/WeThePeoplePetition
The block came just as I started going public with a new activist website I am building. I live near Madison, WI. Although I’ve never been involved in politics before, Scott Walker and company changed all that.
Since I’ve several years worth of experience building standard databases I thought I’d build an on-line activist site. This is my first foray into building an on-line database. And I was just rolling it out and asking folks to join as Beta Testers when Facebook blocked me.
Others who have joined WE are the Democracy are also complaining about being blocked.
Thank you for bringing publicity to this and I hope you’ll check out WE are the Democracy – my intent is to build an on-line organizing site where we can all meet-up and organize ourselves. I will NOT censor members.
There is a thread on the We are Democracy forums about Facebook’s censorship. I will post a link to this article in that thread – feel free to join the threaded conversation yourself.
The thread can be found here: http://www.wearethedemocracy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=24
In Peace – Rose
It has nothing to do with political viewpoints. LOTS of people are being banned this way regardless of politics. There are dozens of fb threads out there about people having been banned for “spammy behavior.” There are discussions in LinkedIn groups (which are sometimes known for “like me and I’ll like you back” posts.)
If you are still blocked, try submitting a bug report here and tell them why you should not have been blocked.
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=notes_bug
I’m not a big fan of the Obama site in question, but I wouldn’t describe myself as a right-winger either. I happen to have virtual contacts inside and outside of the “liberal” sphere, and it doesn’t seem like just the Obama link is being targeted on Facebook.
I haven’t gone out of my way looking into this yet, but this group represents another contingent of people who’ve been punished for ordinary political posting: http://www.facebook.com/groups/stopthenewworldorder2011. (Obviously, the name of the group leans toward the “conspiracy” crowd, but it does mean to include anyone affected by recent political censorship on Facebook.)
Thanks very much for this article. I have been on about 4 Facebook pages total for the last 18 months or so. All my posts are relevant to the subject matter of the sites, usually what I’m doing is linking newspaper articles & contributing to discussions. I got one of these messages last week & it’s really annoying. I will try to send them a message to see if I can get unblocked. I felt very suspicious as to why I was blocked and agree it’s an attack on free speech.
What a bunch of lies. Its been happening to conservatives forever….ive had accounts deleted for no reason at all, other than my politics didnt agree with liberals.
if its happening to libs, its prolly because so many of them post hate on the white house wall.
all they do is talk about “shitbaggers” and “professional victims”
and post peoples addresses and stalk profiles and post peoples personal info…every time I post on the white house page, said lib trolls ask me about my ex g/f who was married when i met her.
go to the WH page and see for yourself.
the lib trolls post all day, and I get blocked from commenting sometimes within 3 posts
I jsut attempted, and had no problem posting what is listed in the article on the WH FB page
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/08/13/republican-for-dummies-a-translation-guide-to-right-wing-talking-points/
There are even certain people that are protected from being reported…you get an error message “oops, something isnt working, we will fix it soon”
while they post addresses and hate and personal info
awwwwwwwwww poor white male in america. awwww yea your a victim baby! poor thing! ha
**UPDATE**
For all those wrongfully banned. If you have already send emails to Facebook, please check your email. I just received the following email from the Facebook Team:
“Hi,
Your account was mistakenly blocked from posting on Pages. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. We’ve lifted the block from your account, and you should now be able to post again.
We’re constantly building and refining Facebook to protect members from spam. You can read more about these systems in
our blog post here: https://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=403200567130.
These systems aren’t directed at any particular cause or point of view. However,no system is perfect, and ours occasionally make mistakes. We’re investigating the system that caused the block and making changes to help prevent future errors.
Thanks for your understanding,
The Facebook Team”
Now, my question to all of you is, was Facebook getting nervous because people were pointing fingers at each other and in-fighting, or because people were handing out Google+ invites like it was Christmas in July? I tend to believe it’s the latter ;)
I am very pleased you were unbanned, Michelle, but are you the only one? I can’t even thank people who like my videos! It is ridiculous. I am going to write now to Guardian Media …
You may have spoken too soon, Michelle. Everyone I know who got that e-mail remains banned.
My site is currently under attack due to the election of the mayor of Flint is in November I use tactics that I do not care for but I found if I am nice with no name calling the numbers drop on hits. I post it on my Facebook page that is clearly marked a Political facebook as well other facebook pages I am a member of how ever the site was reported as well my picture was reported as abusive. when I fight for Victim of Homicides here in flint and I fight for justice here in flint. I am against any one that is in office that abuses their office like the current mayor. My website uses the news article to back the site up for what is going on in our city. and the FBI is in the city hall for a Reason yet I was blocked from posting and they continue to make me put in a code to post anything. My page is clearly a Political page and I am a Political figure in my community no matter if the like it or not. God has my back and I will not stop.
I received the same email from Facebook about 4 days ago and STILL can not post to other PEOPLE’s walls. So their apology has very little value.
If Facebook really wants to control spamming then they need to trust their Facebook page administrators to report spam. One would think Facebook page administrators (I own and administrate two pages) were perfectly capable of determining real spam from welcome content. All Facebook would have to do is set up their system to ban people who have been consistently reported by Facebook page administrators. It really is that simple.
I have started a FaceBook Wall to try and get a sense of how many people are banned for 15 days.
I called it “I am Not Spammy and Irrelevant”
I know people under the FaceBook ban cannot post there, BUT they can LIKE the page. A count of LIKES will give us an idea how many people are banned from posting for 15 days. \
http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-am-Not-Spammy-and-Irrelevant/239739836064065
And yes, most of the banned people are in animal rescue.
I’m right you guys are republicans that why all this BS
i know a few HUNDRED Ron Paul supporters that were also banned!!
his message is scaring SOMEONE!
GOOGLE RON PAUL!! please??? pretty please??
Ron Paul supporters SHOULD be banned from any group page that doesn’t have Ron Paul in the title. The RP cult are the biggest collection of spammiest, spamming, spam bastards on the internet.
Get back into your pods and leave the rest of us alone.
Please help – share if & where you can – I am banned form helping save the babies our beloved pets – http://www.thepetitionsite.com/846/petition-to-stop-fb-from-blocking-animal-rescuers/
I have started a FaceBook Wall to try and get a sense of how many people are banned for 15 days.
I called it “I am Not Spammy and Irrelevant”
I know people under the FaceBook ban cannot post there, BUT they can LIKE the page. A count of LIKES will give us an idea how many people are banned from posting for 15 days. \
http://www.facebook.com/pages/I-am-Not-Spammy-and-Irrelevant/239739836064065
On Sunday I received the ‘you’re banned’ message from Facebook. I’ve used FB for over a year, mostly to share information/news on the hideous practice of drilling called hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’. I only post to groups/pages that pertain to fracking. I never sent junk / spam type stuff out.
On Monday I called the AP & spoke to a reporter about this. Today he called back, they’re doing a story on this situation, it’ll be published on Friday, Aug. 19, 2011.
Lesson I learned: don’t depend on any one form of communication. Yes, FB has been very valuable as an easy means to get the word out & in a format that’s easily shared by others with their friends.
The AP reporter asked me, “Well what do you say to the fact that this service is provided free to you and millions of other users?” I said that the only reason that FB is worth billions of $ is BECAUSE of the millions of us who use this “free” service. I also told the reporter that, right now, in rooms across the globe, a whole hell of a lot of people are working on an even bigger & better social network than FB. FB’s wearing the crown right now, but for how long? Oh, and the AP reporter says the story will hit the AP wire on Friday. Stay tuned. info@marcellusprotest.org
all of the animal rescue folks are up in arms and paranoiac that facebook has targeted them, too… I got suspended after posting the same message on animal group page. I don’t think fb is targeting anyone folks, I think this is some sort of glitch and hopefully, if rumors are true, that they are working on fixing it… yahoo and facebook are also supposed to be conducting some sort of social experiment this week, maybe this is it????
Well, I tried to post a comment, but where has it disappeared to? I have been banned since Saturday and why? I am an admin for a charity, the 7th Annual Oxfam Tribute to Colin Firth. We are collecting for Oxfam. I am only in contact with individual friends and similar sites as ours, fansites. We all post on each others’ walls. I only posted 4 or 5 messages, hardly spam. I really resent being accused of posting spam – I am not a criminal. Please, will someone tell Zuckerberg? It is very distressful. It didn’t happen last year. Thank you.
I have been banned since Saturday for posting 4 or 5 posts from our charity page: 7th Annual Oxfam Tribute for Colin Firth’s 51st Birthday. I only posted on friends’ pages and our affiliates, other Colin Firth fan sites. I keep getting this:
This feature is blocked for you
As we notified you earlier, this feature is temporarily unavailable because you’ve been sending spam and irrelevant posts on Facebook Pages.
I am being made to feel like a criminal and suggest we all go to Google+! That might give them a fright!
It is not limited to any country, any interest area, it is just random.
Someone please contact Zuckerman!
Hi,
Thanks for the post. I work for Facebook and thought I would take a moment to explain our approach. I know that there are lots of questions and some confusion about our policies and practices around content. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to be transparent on our site (http://www.facebook.com/communitystandards), on our blog (https://www.facebook.com/blog.php?post=403200567130), and through the press (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/technology/13facebook.html).
Generally, we’re very proud of the environment on Facebook. We want Facebook to be a place where people can openly express their views and opinions, even if others don’t agree with them. That said, there are some types of content we don’t allow. For example, we remove hate, threats, pornography, attacks on private individuals, and other kinds of abuse when they’re reported to us. We also work to prevent spam. You’ll find a more complete list of what we don’t allow, as well as an explanation of the community we’re trying to build, on the Community Standards page mentioned above. We’ve developed these policies with guidance from our Safety Advisory Board and other recognized experts from around the world.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many examples for Facebook to follow in this area. We simply face a challenge that few companies have ever faced – protecting a service that’s under constant attack and through which over 750 million people share more than 30 billion pieces of content every month. Our international team of reviewers works across offices in California, Texas, Ireland, and India to review hundreds of thousands of pieces of reported content every day. Our engineers build systems that classify over ten billion actions (suspicious logins, friend requests, etc.) and pieces of content (messages, Wall posts, etc.) every day. The hundreds of people and sophisticated systems that enforce our policies stand in stark contrast to the vast majority of the rest of the Internet.
Of course, no system is perfect, and we do sometimes make mistakes. Usually, it’s because a system didn’t work as intended or someone simply made a wrong call. In this case, a new system we launched to prevent spam posts on Pages blocked some people it shouldn’t have. We’ve already made changes to improve this system and are working on removing the block for those who shouldn’t have seen it. It’s worth noting that the system never blocked people from posting to Pages they administer.
We strongly believe that what is more important than any mistakes is our response to them. When we do make a mistake, we act quickly to fix it, apologize, and improve our processes so that it doesn’t happen again. Still, though, we believe our error rates rival those of any company in any industry.
We take all of these responsibilities very seriously. We don’t pretend to have all the answers, though, and we welcome constructive feedback on how to improve our approach. Thanks again.
Simon Axten
Facebook
Hi Simon,
So what is the solution for this current issue? You have hundreds if not thousands of people that have been wrongfully banned, and there is no place to go to dispute it. Facebook does not provide an outlet to allow for dispute of being wrongfully accused, instead, automatically censors my freedom of speech.
Is there an email address or a list we can be put on to request our accounts be looked at and verified legitimate?
In my case, I only posted to one group page, and the admin told me I was not on their banned list. I have done nothing wrong, I have not broken the rules.
What is our recourse? How do we get unbanned?
While I understand the vast amount of work involved on your end, someone there must be accountable and responsible for providing a fix for this. If I make a mistake, maybe a couple of people are affected. If a company as big as Facebook makes a mistake, millions can be affected. As I said in another comment; this type of thing (leaving people stranded with no response to the issue) can drive people in droves to other competitors’ sites….like Google+.
Please respond with how we can get out of this mess!
Kind regards,
Michelle Ventress
I am convinced that the “banning” issue has nothing to do with free speech, politics, or any other cause! That I am sure of, especially since the problem has occurred across the political spectrum and across various causes of all sorts. I am convinced, however, that the bunch at Facebook has no sense of proportion and are completely tone deaf when it comes to our complaints at being unfairly banned for doing the SAME THINGS OTHERS ARE DOING ON OUR PAGES AS WE SPEAK!!!!! Give me a break here. Facebook can immediately remove all these restriction errors and let each of us monitor our own pages….WE DO NOT NEED A “BIG BROTHER” IN THE FORM OF FACEBOOK OVER-MANAGING THE SYSTEM!!! That is what the “x” is for, isn’t it? We can permanently remove folks from our walls and prevent them from posting there! We can “unfriend”, we can report “spam”, but why are we being subjected to being treated like a bunch grade school dropouts?
One thing each of us who are affectged by this injustice should make it a point to do and that is CONTACT EACH OF THE ADVERTISERS ON Facebook AND LET THE ADVERTISERS KNOW THAT WE WILL NOT BUY A PRODUCT OR SERVICE THAT THEY ADVERTISE ON FACEBOOK UNTIL AND UNLESS THIS STUPID MISTAKE IS IMMEDIATELY CORRECTED!
Animals very LIVES are at stake here because animal rescuers cannot post on pages about animals who are in danger !!!!!! God knows how many animals may have been killed, lost, not gotten to safety this week because of this suspension/ban. EVERY SINGLE DAY ANIMALS COULD BE SAVED BUT HAVE NOT BEEN. Come on Facebook, GET A GRIP, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY and FIX this asap. CROSS POSTING ANIMALS IS NOT SPAM NOR IRRELEVANT !!!!! there must be some way for Facebook to FIX this asap… are they taking it seriously??????????
Thank you Simon for at least answering some of the complaints though not addressing the main point about the “unjustified” bans.
We in the UK Labour Party fan page have suffered a lot of regular posters being hit by unjust banning. We believe in the Labour Party wall case at least that a group of trolls with an army of fake profiles have launched mass reporting for spam attacks on regular posters in order to disrupt normal discussion. I can believe that FB is not in cahoots with them but it is your systems that allow mass reporting to result in these automatic bans. One solution is to hand over the spam prevention to the page admins who are perfectly capable of blocking and removing spam.
One thing is for sure the current system cannot be allowed to continue.
Hi Simon
I am very pleased that you have unblocked Michelle. Please could you unblock me as well? We have only a week left for our Oxfam appeal and as I have explained, I do not post spam, and certainly not posts in great amounts. I only post to our sister fan pages, and if you check those, all our posts get views and ticks from readers. I only post on these pages:
Colin Firth 24/7
Actor/Director
Pride and Prejudice
TV show
Colin Firth Daily
Actor/Director
Colin Firth Fans
Actor/Director
Colin Firth – The perfect gentleman
Actor/Director
Colin Andrew Firth – Argentina
Non-profit organisation
On the day you banned me, I had posted a photo thanking everyone for their donations:
“THANK YOU! THANK YOU!! THANK…” on Colin Andrew Firth’s Wall.
7th Annual Oxfam Tribute to Colin Firth on his 51st Birthday posted a photo to Colin Firth Fans Chile’s Wall.
7th Annual Oxfam Tribute to Colin Firth on his 51st Birthday posted a photo to Colin Andrew Firth – Argentina’s Wall.
7th Annual Oxfam Tribute to Colin Firth on his 51st Birthday posted a photo to I want to clone Colin Firth’s Wall.
7th Annual Oxfam Tribute to Colin Firth on his 51st Birthday posted a photo to Colin Firth – The perfect gentleman’s Wall.
7th Annual Oxfam Tribute to Colin Firth on his 51st Birthday posted a photo to Colin Firth Daily’s Wall.
7th Annual Oxfam Tribute to Colin Firth on his 51st Birthday posted a photo to Pride & Prejudice (BBC)’s Wall.
So, 7 posts! Is this spam? Pleeeeeeeeeeeease can you unblock me for the last week of our appeal?
Thank you
Best wishes
Annie Stieglitz
I guess thats why FB just removed a post of mine from a political because it was “sexually expicit”
I wish I knew what post got removed, and why, since I never posted such content.
Here is an example of a liberal page dedicated to false flagging posts on anyone who disagrees with them
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126274997391116
Category:
Organizations – Political Organizations
Description:
If you’re one of the 1+ million on the Anti-SB1070 and tired of trolls, let’s show our discontent at the polls.
Privacy Type:
Open: All content is public.
Admins
Paola D’ Razo (Chicago, IL)
Luis Serrano
Gladys Lopez
Nacho Man (creator)
Officers
Nacho Man
General, chief strategist, and primary satirist.
Paola D’ Razo (Chicago, IL)
Lieutenant
Gladys Lopez
Lieutenant
Luis Serrano
Lieutenant
Fed Silverio I whacked 12 trolls this weekend. I’m lying, the truth is I made up a moderately low number because there’s no way for me to possibly keep track of how many trolls I’ve wacked.
June 11, 2010 at 11:05pm
2 people like this.
Carolyn Parker Breen How does that billy goat troll story go? Good Billy goat! Fed
June 13, 2010 at 1:39pm
Fed Silverio Hehehehehe
June 14, 2010 at 12:36pm
Rob Spafford I’m upset, Fed… the quality of troll has declined seriously… none got facts, none got game, armed only with anger, they just turn out to be common variety bores…
June 14, 2010 at 10:47pm · 1 person
Fed Silverio That’s because all the ones with a brain have joined our side. Now it’s all about hit and runs or keeping people distracted on a 758745784 comment-long post.
June 15, 2010 at 2:34am
Like many of those posting here, I have been banned from posting because of “spam and irrelevant material.” Like those others, I have been sharing news articles about my organization to the pages of other like-minded organizations. Nothing spammy about it.
I can’t even figure out who to email at Facebook to protest. So if you welcome constructive feedback on your approach, how about starting with a link given when the suspension is delivered to challenge the suspension?
By the way, I’m still looking. If you’d like, you can email me at dradmacher@appalmad.org. If anyone else has the proper contact information, I’d appreciate it.
Thanks.
Mr. Axten, Facebook has a mole.
By that I mean that one or more of your programmers/system administrators are pursuing their own radical right agenda, and this is partially the reason for this “accidental” rash of banning/blocking that the above article is speaking out about. There have been several instances that I know of personally where liberal groups have been blocked, banned, intimidated and some instances where the harassment has been so severe that the individuals affected had no choice but to quit and sign back in with another Facebook account.
One of my friends even had her personal information shared with other websites, including information on an alias that existed nowhere but on Facebook and that had no connection with her personal account except the link through the ISP she used. This would have required someone with system administrator access to locate, or one of the programmers that works with the system code. She was the subject of two ‘virus’ attacks that shut down and locked out the antivirus and firewall software in her computer, then rapidly proceeded to disable her Windows registry and cripple her computer, both happening after tracing right-wing ‘trolls’ and handing over their real identities to some of the liberal groups.
Mr. Axten, you have one or more persons working for Facebook who believe this kind of harassment, intimidation and destruction of property is okay. Instead of handing out bland, unconvincing statements that these actions are just glitches in the system, why not go in and see if there are common denominators to these problems, like one or two system administrators linked to all the unwarranted liberal bans these good people have been writing about? You can look for code issues for the next thousand years and not find anything if this is a human-based abuse issue–and while you’re at it, look to see if this kind of thing has been happening to the conservative groups as well, there may be more than one biased administrator in the works. . .
Henry D. Rinehart
I encountered the same problem. Joined some liberal pages, got kicked out, got a virus, even with all of my protections. Changed my political and religious statuses, and I got another virus that wiped out my computer. Used my smartphone to post, got a virus. I keep thinking these are coincidences, but that’s a much more difficult pill to swallaow if its also “randomly” happening to others under the same circumstances.
I was banned from the White House wall for telling a man that it wasn’t wise to come onto the forum and accuse people of being gay and have his business listed on his profile. That it wasn’t good for business to be so openly discriminatory against gays as I also had friends in the same state he was from that were in the same business who would find his slurs demeaning and that word of mouth could shut down a business real fast. I had no intentions of telling my friends about him.. I just wanted to get the message across to him that it could happen. I am not gay, but after seeing so many people bashed and some killed over it, I am not going to sit idly by and allow someone to continue the hatred in my presence. It’s like people have set degrees on things that they believe to be wrong… it’s okay to rob, steal or kill, just don’t be gay kind of thinking. Unreal. Anyway, the block won’t allow me to post a comment on White House wall or any other public wall and I have no idea how long it will be as Facebook says “anywhere from a few hours to a few days”. Yeah.. I’ll be headed over to Google Plus as soon as it opens. I’m 14 hours into my block. Facebook is 14 hours into the myspace of yesteryear. Great way to ruin your own! The report button is for people who have no way to defend their own opinion in my book. Lose it and get a dislike button… it’ll work a lot better.
Weirdly enough spamming posts supporting actual terrorist groups such as the Sovereign Citizens Movement do not result in a ban. How does that work exactly? The FBI has a web page citing the Sovereign Citizens movement as a terrorist group and they get to post on Facebook AFTER they’ve been flagged. Even after a review of the person’s post should have shown they were advocating violence.
Can we try a little harder? Are Facebook employees not allowed to Google?
The censoring is not about America, per se, and not limited to Americans – it’s about any political opinion-stating that is reported by anybody.
I live in Israel and I got the same notification on Sunday Aug. 14
Update: Just got a form-letter reply from Facebook about my initial appeal of the suspension. I also sent them a link to this page in my letter. Their response is not helpful at all.
“We are aware of the problem that you described and apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, we do not have a specific date for when this issue will be resolved but hope to fix it as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience.”
Thanks for the update, seems you’re the only one that’s gotten a response from them, however unhelpful it is…..
In the meantime, this kind of treatment and lack of customer service by FB will have many people (including myself) flocking over to Google+
Maybe it’s time for a little competition..
American companies are vassals of the Chinese liege. FB is just another one of them – it’s not rocket science to figure this out. Come to think of it, we are laying off rocket scientists.
I will now probably be banned for this comment.
There is an area on FB where you can post about being banned from posting. We call it being in FB jail. http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=20531316728&topic=51545
I noticed right away that many of my fellow inmates were in animal rescue.
I can tell you that had this been in place after the tornadoes earlier this year, tens of thousands would have been suspended in the first hours after the storms. The tremendous publicity FaceBook got on community efforts, such as finding and returning photos, would never have happened. Without the ability to cross-post, new pages will take exponentially longer to get off the ground.
When my 15 days are up, I will be broken of the habit of posting on walls other than my own . . .
The Tea Party has several groups with over 50,000 members that facebook is threatening to archive and loose its members. Free Speech for both sides, that is America and Constitutional. When all we want is to silence the opposition we the people loose. Lets discuss practical solutions and quit demonizing. I support Ron Paul and all three parties hate him. R, D, and L. :)
I sent the following email to 4 FB email addys: legal@facebook.com, press@facebook.com, info@facebook.com, and coop@fb.com (<-referred by a friend who found it on another page experiencing the same problem). I wrote:
"Hello,
I was given your address to report that I have been wrongfully banned from posting for 15 days. I never violated any of Facebook's TOS, and I don't know what I did to get myself banned.
Since Sun, Aug 14th, I posted on only one group page, OpenMedia.ca. I left about 4 or 5 posts (links), and every one was relevant to OpenMedia's page (media-related). I had also posted about 10 or so links on my own wall, the last being a link to compare cell phone rate plans across Canada. I was then informed that I would be banned for 15 days. This is very upsetting as everything I have posted is relevant and not spam, and I am absolutely not a troll. I was even more upset Facebook has given me no way to dispute my innocence, nor was I warned before being banned so I could be given the chance to "fix" anything. There is a major flaw in Facebook's system that needs to be fixed immediately, as it seems this issue is very widespread, creating unfair censorship of free speech, and Facebook is allowing wrongful punishment on individuals who are not violating any of it's terms of service. The fact that Facebook doesn't even give you an option to dispute these claims is undemocratic, allowing the innocent to be labeled guilty without question, without fair review.
Please respond as soon as possible to assure me that someone is working on this, to restore my faith in Facebook, and most importantly, to take me off this banned list. I never did anything wrong and I would hope that closer review will be given to my account and fixed asap. I know for a fact that the page I posted on is supporting me, in fact, this type of wrongful act by Facebook is driving them to ponder other social networking sites to move to because this type of censorship is crossing the line.
For your information, the following article was posted yesterday, and aside from the article itself, please read the comments below as they may prove useful; many people are voicing the same concerns that they've been wrongfully banned (from posting on "liberal" pages, to animal rights pages, even for posting a cake recipe on a cake recipe page). -
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/08/15/hey-facebook-are-you-really-censoring-political-free-speech-in-america/#comment-12863
I am hoping to hear back from someone as soon as possible."
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Does anyone have an update on this issue? I sent this email this morning and have only received one automated response, nothing else.
Seems I can post on my own wall, I can post on a friend’s wall, but when it comes to posting on Group walls, I’m still banned. I only posted on one group page before I was banned. Seems to me like rogue members of groups are causing this mess.
One more thing: I am in Canada, and I posted to a Canadian page. I know that FB is in the States, but I wanted to say it’s happening here too.
I am Swiss citizen and i get banned exactly in the way your article describes. I have posted a friendly article on two pages (democracy now and commondreams.or).
Check out my new page though: Reporter Against Fascism.
Peace and Love
It is often said when America sneezes we in the UK catch a cold, well thanks cousins we are also suffering the FB smothering of free speech. Myself and a lot of my fellow Labour party supporters have been subject to unjustified 15 day bans from posting on the Labour Party fan page and all other pages also. We have come to the conclusion that there is some politically motivated trolls using the FB anti spam feature for their own nefarious purposes. We hope you in America can persuade FB to get this sorted.
Best wishes
Peter
it happened to me for posting an educational video on US history to politically minded pages
Update:
As more info has come to light, it seems the issue isn’t limited to liberal pages (although they seem to be in the majority). Animal rescue workers have also been disabled, and I’ve heard the rumor that some conservative pages have been too.
I say Facebook has no right to decide for its users who they can share information with and how often. It’s absurd. The only people who should be cited for spam are those who are repeatedly marked as a spammer by ADMINS of a page – the real trolls.
Facebook should wake up and fix their PR nightmare. 60 comments on this one page show that people won’t stand for this kind of parental policing from Facebook.
I Have Been Banned from Posting Videos On FB. For The Past Four m onths. When I Recieved A Copyright Infringement Challenge I Challenged It Back And It Kept Telling Me That There Was A Problem And FB Was Looking Into It, This Occured For At Least 10 Times Before I Got The ban…..The Fact That No One In FB Company Is Approachable Or Responsible Leaves A Bad taste In Ones Mouth. I Believe That The FB Bubble Will Bust Like The Housing Bubble And Other Tech Bubbles…Just A Matter Of Time….
I’d have to agree with you; the facebook bubble will most likely burst just like the dot com bubble, the housing bubble, the savings and loan bubble, history keeps repeating itself on this subject.
This seems to be happening to a lot of people, not just leftists. A lot of Ron Paul supporters are getting banned as well. It sounds like a combination of trolls flagging posts and Facebook filters not functioning correctly. It definitely needs to be fixed, but we should be careful about pointing fingers too hastily.
Many thanks for the article: it’s ‘interesting’ to hear that our American cousins in the Democratic party and others who take a liberal stance are also facing these bans – this kind of ‘censorship’ is rife here on the official Labour Party Facebook page… it’s also occurring on the official Liberal Democratic Party – they are *supposed* to be in a coalition with the Conservative Party in government, but also seem to be ‘under attack’ …
The quick Google I’ve done on this indicates that the ban is happening on ‘liberal’ pages, music pages, animal rights pages and one page that highlights the human trafficking problem…
Could it be that zealots on the right have ‘done a deal’ with Mr. Z. in much the same way they swapped News Corporation media support for loosening of broadcast & print legislation and (I believe) corporation tax breaks?
Whether this attack on free speech is being perpetrated directly by the right, or using Facebook/Mr. Z. as a ‘proxy’, it’s time for the US press to take this up, methinks… the ones that haven’t been taken over by News Corp, that is!
Unfortunately, it won’t happen in the UK, as 70% of the press here is controlled by 6 individuals, all of them supporters of the Conservative Party…
Hey Liberal Lamp Post.
I just wanted to tell you that I don’t think it’s a right-wing conspiracy. I am a Ron Paul supporter and I got the same 15 day warning today for posting the same link about Ron Paul on only two Ron Paul pages.
Of course, I could be wrong I guess, since many in the GOP consider Ron Paul a fringe candidate who’s infiltrating their party, so I guess it’s possible, just not as likely as FB doing it would be. Especially when you look at just the 15 day suspension, and not the links that somehow get banned.
Mark Zuckerberg and half his board went to Bilderberg this year. If you don’t know how that’s significant, please look up Bilderberg.
um guys? did you know that users mark these sites you are trying to post as spam with facebook long before you ever thought to post the link? It’s not really facebook’s fault. They get 50 odd flags(out of spite) on a link and disallow it from being posted automatically. Then if you try to post it, the system flags you as a spammer. have you seen some of the crap on that site? obviously they are not practicing much site moderation. Blame immature facebookers for this problem. really, wow…not everything is a conspiracy!