- Dec 18, 2012
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First they came for Alex Jones. Yes Facebook is technically a private company and can do what it wants. But aren't the long haul wires that the Internet is based on all part of a formerly regulated monopoly? The Baby Bells, Verizon, etc. And doesn't that subject them to some sort of Equal Time principle?
Free Thought Project and 250 Independent Media Sites Deleted From Facebook
Libertarian and Police Accountability Pages Deleted in Facebook Purge
Libertarian and Police Accountability Pages Deleted in Facebook Purge
Hundreds of pages and accounts have been purged over accusations that they were "inauthentic." The page operators disagree.
Scott Shackford
Oct. 12, 2018
"I contributed to Facebook's success and growth!" Jason Bassler said with some frustration this morning, a day after the social media giant unpublished the page for a media site he founded, The Free Thought Project. "I decided to create content day after day. Now they piss on us."
Facebook announced Thursday that it was deleting 559 pages and 251 accounts that it claims were breaking Facebook's rules against spam and "inauthentic" behavior. The Free Thought Project was one of the demolished pages, along with another of Bassler's efforts, Police the Police. Both pages that produced content—stories, memes, and videos—that focused on government behavior and were shared widely among fans, particularly libertarians.
Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of cybersecurity policy, and Oscar Rodriguez, a Facebook product manager, have explained the purge by writing that they don't think these sites were really trying to engage in political debate but were in fact spam factories trying to make money:
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Bassler explains though that this was the result of networking between pages of similar interest, not a handful of people trying to artificially inflate their own popularity. He has made five pages himself, and he was assisting with these others.
"When we first started these pages in 2012, we started networking with different page owners realized we could do more to benefit each other by helping each other," he says. "What we did and what we've done for the past six years is help each other out by giving each other information."
Bassler isn't the only one confused. Over at the Washington Post, James Reader, who runs a progressive site and page called Reverb Reader, complains about Facebook "changing the rules as they went." Many of them, like Bassler, used networking to build a community to reach a larger audience—a normal sort of organizing that Facebook now deems "inauthentic."
The Free Thought Project had 3 million followers and Police the Police nearly 2 million. Some of the stories highlighted and shared on their website will be familiar to Reason readers, like the recent case of the Kansas man handcuffed on his own property by police who had confused him with a burglar. Bassler says he also got stories from people reaching out to them, upset when the general media reported only the police's side of the story. Bassler describes himself as a libertarian anarchist, but he says he's tried hard not to push an ideological agenda onto his pages, focusing instead on government accountability.... FULL ARTICLE Libertarian and Police Accountability Pages Deleted in Facebook Purge
