Facebook logo, author Simon3. From Wikimedia Commons.
Facebook has shadow banned PragerU into complete silence to its more than 3 million followers, internal analytics revealed.
"Our last 9 posts have been completely censored reaching 0 of our 3 million followers," PragerU media personality Will Witt posted on Facebook Friday. "At least two of our videos were deleted last night for 'hate speech' including a post of our most recent video with The Conservative Millennial, Make Men Masculine Again."
"Internal Facebook analytics reveal that as of Thursday, Aug. 16, at 10:00 PM PDT, posts by PragerU on the social media platform have been completely invisible to its more than 3 million followers," PragerU reported in a news release Friday. "Currently, visitors to PragerU's Facebook page are unable to see any of its most recent posts."
"This is a first for us," PragerU Chief Marketing Officer Craig Strazzeri said in a statement. "While we've experienced blatant discrimination from Google/YouTube, which is why we've filed legal action against them, this represents a whole new level of censorship by Facebook. at this point, Facebook has provided little clarity saying it will get back to us in another two to three business days, which in the world of social media might as well be an eternity."
"This is very troubling behavior from the world's largest social network," Strazzeri added. "Not only are they obviously ratcheting up their algorithms to target mainstream, conservative content and labeling it as hate speech, but they are now completely blocking our posts from public view. This is shocking and it should deeply concern every single American."
PragerU filed its lawsuit against Google/YouTube last October, alleging "intentional" censorship of conservative speakers. YouTube continues to restrict access to PragerU videos, without censoring similar videos from other, less mainstream or less conservative, accounts.
In June, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a left-wing smear factory that brands conservative and Christian organizations "hate groups" for disagreeing with their liberal worldview, targeted PragerU. The SPLC has advocated social media censorship, and companies like Amazon, Google, and Twitter have relied on their "hate group" list. The SPLC may soon be facing roughly 60 separate defamation lawsuits over this list.
As for Facebook, it recently removed Alex Jones of InfoWars from its platform, alleging violations of the site's community standards for, among other things, "using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender." The social media giant did not reveal whether such "dehumanizing language" merely involved disagreeing with transgender identity, something far more mainstream than Jones' conspiracy theories.
Christian scholar Robert Gagnon has been repeatedly suspended on Facebook, and in April the social media platform suspended a German history professor for saying that "Islam is not a part of German history."
PragerU did not suggest that it would be taking legal action against Facebook, but the move is deeply troubling.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @Tyler2ONeil.
No comments:
Post a Comment