A couple of years ago, Facebook threatened to shut down the popular "Chicks on the Right" Facebook page because the owners dared to criticize the White House press secretary, Jay Carney. Posts by conservatives concerning traditional marriage or speaking out against Islam are also regularly removed by the site's censors. Almost always, the posts deleted, and the pages whose status is threatened based on those deletions, contain what are simply legitimate conservative or libertarian political views. The way the progressives at Facebook justify this ideological censorship is by saying the posts in question violate the site's "community standards." But when political correctness becomes the standard, any expression of conservative thought is redefined as "hate" or "harassment." This is something the libs have long worked hard to achieve: marginalizing opposing thought as "hate" so that conservative voices can be silenced.
So, just how biased is Facebook? In a day and age when practically everyone has a Facebook page, and when Facebook is used to promote many businesses, losing access to this virtual public square can put both business owners and politically minded citizens at a disadvantage. Conservative and libertarian groups, pages and causes proliferate on Facebook, just as liberal and progressive interests do. But how often are conservatives put at a disadvantage on what is, based on Mark Zuckerberg's politics, hostile territory? Does Facebook really harass conservative interests while promoting liberal ones?
Christopher Gleason of Molon Labe Industries thinks so. Gleason's Facebook page was closed recently following a string of "violations." Now, keep in mind that when something is flagged as a violation on Facebook, it is because individuals took the time to click on the offending content. There is simply too much traffic on the site for its owners and staff to police everything that is posted. They rely on keyword searches, algorithms and individual reports to bring attention to questionable content. This means that if enough libs gather together to report your page, even if you've done nothing but gore some Democratic oxen, you will eventually lose your page. And because Facebook is one of those massive, faceless entities with no means of talking to a human being, no means of appealing administrative decisions and no recourse for unfair or unjust applications of its own rules, the arbitrary decisions of Facebook's left-leaning management are as final as they are ideologically driven.
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Gleason's Molon Labe manufactures military-grade rifle components. "We are a veteran owned and operated business," reads the company's website. "Molon Labe Industries manufactures polymer magazines and accessories for the FN SCAR rifle platform." In other words, Christopher Gleason is everything that liberals and Facebook censors hate: He's a military veteran, he works in the firearms industry, he believes in gun rights, and he speaks out against Obama and left-wingers in general. His Facebook page contained what you would expect from such a personality and business. He shared exactly the types of meme photos and other viral images and links that you'd think such a man would share; they are the same things you might find on, say, my very own timeline, and on the timelines of countless other conservatives and libertarians.
Never doubt that Facebook's owners and its ideological fellow travelers despise the fact that this material is on Facebook. They hate freedom of speech and will do whatever they can to shut you up, to shut you down and to make sure your opinions are marginalized as "hate" or as "harassment." Abusing the interpretation of community standards to outlaw one side of a political argument is just a typical left-wing tool in the war for public opinion that wages daily on social media. If the libs can destroy something you've built in the process, they are that much happier.
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"We had over 130,000 fans with a weekly reach of 3-4 million views," Gleason reports. "Facebook deleted our page last week and would not give us any indication as to why, aside from their statement that we violated their 'Community Standards.' Over the past few months, Facebook has increasingly been targeting our page for 'violations.' … Often they would flag a post as 'insensitive' and ask us if we would like to delete it. If we elected not to delete it, several hours later they would then come back and say that the same post now violated their community standards and they would ban whichever admin had put up the post for anywhere from seven to 30 days."
That's right: Now simply failing to be as "sensitive" as a liberal wants you to be could cause you to lose a page that has wide reach – something you and your company have built through constant and daily effort. Liberals despise conservative outlets that reach wide audiences. This is why they have long conspired to destroy talk radio and implement unconstitutional restrictions on free speech (like the euphemistically named "Fairness Doctrine").
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Liberals cannot compete in the marketplace of ideas because their ideologies are bankrupt. Their opinions are false, their conclusions based on lies and distortion, and their "logic" as twisted and spurious as any tortured rationalization could be. Knowing that they cannot win arguments on social media or the public airwaves, they turn to methods that will allow them to stamp out offending conservative thought without really engaging it. This is where the appeals to "community standards," "sensitivity" and other subjective measures come into play. Facebook is private property, yes, but if there is one set of rules for conservatives and another set of rules for liberals, it paints the social media giant in a remarkably negative light. It also underscores the danger of Facebook becoming a potential "news" outlet, given its management's political bias.
"We are not the only page that they have been doing this to," adds Gleason. "There are quite a few others. Last month they deleted the Patriot Nation page, which had over 400,000 fans. A few other pages that have been hit were Never Surrender, Barack Obama's Dead Fly, Shooter Jobs ... the list goes on. Facebook is currently making a big push to host news content within their site. Their censorship of dissenting views is very troubling and must be brought to the attention of the public."
Media wishing to interview Phil Elmore, please contact [email protected].
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