The Tyrants of Facebook ~ Introduction
For if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.
—George Washington—
Key points: Mark Zuckerberg apparently is both a hypocrite and a tyrant. His so-called “platform” Facebook (platforms are supposed to be places where all users can speak freely) is clearly censoring conservatives’ free speech rights.
Links to all the articles in this series are available here.
Today (Sunday, October 17, 2021), I submitted a request to Facebook to boost a page on my Word Foundations site that lets my readers know of a book offer from me and Word Foundations. Here is the page I wanted Facebook to boost. At a cost to me of $20.00, the ad (or boost on FB) would have run for 10 days.
The request was rejected.
Facebook claims,
Your ad may have been rejected because it mentions politicians or is about sensitive social issues that could influence public opinion, how people vote and may impact the outcome of an election or pending legislation. Our policy for running ads about social issue, electoral or politics requires you to get authorized first by confirming your identity and creating a disclaimer that lists who is paying for the ads.
For crying out loud, the item I am offering people for $5.00, plus $1.00 shipping, is a paraphrase of an account written by Governor William Bradford of the Plymouth Settlement! You can read the content of the booklet here.
Yes, the title does indicate that the account paraphrased is “A Lesson for 21st-Century Americans,” and yes, the title does indicate that socialism as an economic system is criticized.
Still, it mentions no modern politicians and no contemporary political contests. Of course, FB doesn’t know any of this directly, because no one read the article the booklet showcases. My ad, or request to boost the webpage with information about the purchase offer, was rejected within minutes of my submitting the request.
William Bradford
The above facts notwithstanding, it should be obvious to anyone reading the title of the book that this is a historical account about the Pilgrims during the early 1600s! The one finding fault with socialism is William Bradford himself, governor of the Plymouth colony and a man who lived from 1590 to 1657! Yet amazingly, FB tells me that my
ad may have been rejected because it mentions politicians or is about sensitive social issues that could influence public opinion, how people vote and may impact the outcome of an election or pending legislation (emphasis added).
Gasp! How terrible that I might want to influence public opinion! Who would have ever thought I might want to do such a thing? And who would have ever thought I would want to use Facebook, which is supposed to be a neutral social media platform, to do it?
Evidence Mounts that Mark Zuckerberg is a Hypocrite!
Dear reader, please let what has happened to me, and what is happening to conservatives who are attempting to use social media platforms to get their messages out, sink in! All of this is taking place against the backdrop of these recent revelations.
Mark Zuckerberg
From the Daily Mail, October 15, 2021:
From newsfeeds.media, October 14, 2021:
Mark Zuckerberg ‘gave $419.5MILLION to nonprofits to help turn out likely Democratic voters’
From The Federalist, October 14, 2021:
According to all the current laws on the books regarding 501c3 activities this is illegal. https://t.co/6vZM2vukTE
— Ned Ryun (@nedryun) October 14, 2021
Also, the rigged 2020 process was multi-faceted, there wasn’t just one affront to election integrity.
Equal protection violations, fraud through the mail, Big Tech censorship, Zuckerberg staging a corporate takeover of public election operations — there were many fronts. https://t.co/6FJZqlo4qI
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) October 16, 2021
Thus, in the instance I’ve described (which isn’t the only situation I’ve had like this) I am prevented from using Facebook to “influence public opinion”; yet apparently Mark Zuckerberg uses Facebook every day to “influence” and even manipulate “public opinion, how people vote, and” to “impact the outcome of an election or pending legislation.”
And all the while, Facebook claims the legal protections of a social media platform that is supposed to give users freedom to speak. That simply isn’t happening!
Big Tech Is Violating Conservatives’ Free Speech Rights!
The following information is part of a Word Foundations post I published on November 27, 2020. The title of the post is: “What’s the Big Deal About Section 230?”
On November 27, 2020, President Donald Trump tweeted, “For purposes of National Security, Section 230 must be immediately terminated!!!”
For purposes of National Security, Section 230 must be immediately terminated!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2020
Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act (a law that was passed in 1996) “was designed to prevent internet companies from being treated as publishers and was done in part to allow the internet to flourish.” In an article appearing at The Gateway Pundit, Cristina Laila explains the provisions of this portion of the law:
Online intermediaries such as Twitter or Facebook must act as a neutral platform in order to be protected against laws that would make them legally responsible for what their users post.
Social media platforms, which the law assumes are acting faithfully as public forums as opposed to publishers, must allow users to express themselves freely and not seek to change or to filter out their content.
In other words, to protect them from lawsuits, social media platforms, which the law assumes are acting faithfully as public forums as opposed to publishers, must allow users to express themselves freely and not seek to change or to filter out their content. By contrast, a publisher is directly responsible for the content it produces and can be sued if it is defamatory or otherwise false. Laila goes on to contend, rightly, that
[i]t is clear that Twitter and Facebook are now publishers since they are making editorial decisions on what content is allowed to be shared by users.
Prager University (PragerU), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit information company, seeks to promote American ideas and ideals on a wide variety of topics, many of which are apolitical. PragerU has been the target of social media censorship for some time, specifically censorship from You Tube. The nonprofit sued You Tube and lost, in large part because the First Amendment guarantee of free speech limits government, not private companies. Yet do all Americans truly have free speech rights if some views are censored on social media while opposing views are not? You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media entities have become the 21st-century “street corner” on which Americans must stand and express their views to get their messages out.
Do all Americans truly have free speech rights if some views are censored on social media while opposing views are not? You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media entities have become the 21st-century “street corner” on which Americans must stand and express their views to get their messages out.
Even Ads that Facebook Users Pay for Are Being Censored for Their Content
As my case makes clear, this isn’t just about censorship of speech on what is supposed to be a social media platform; it’s also about censorship of what essentially is paid advertising.
Don’t expect things to change as long as the Democrats are in charge. Just know this: to preserve our rights, we will have to contend for them, as our forefathers did.
I have difficulty believing I am far off the mark to imagine that when Facebook reviewers saw word socialism in my proposed ad, their hearts skipped a beat because they absolutely love socialism and what they believe it stands for. So they rushed deny my request. It was clear I was offering something that might put socialism in a bad light.
The real question here, of course, is this: What does the light of truth reveal about socialism?
Mark Zuckerberg and his cronies cannot stomach that.
The next post in this series of articles is available here. Links to all the articles in this series are available here.
Copyright © 2021 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
top image credit: Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash
photo credit: Mark Zuckerberg
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