Elevating his criticism of Facebook’s free-speech policies, Franklin Graham accused the social-media behemoth of conducting a “personal attack” with its recent 24-hour ban on his activity.
“I think it was just really a personal attack toward me,” he told Fox News Sunday.
His comments came a day after a Facebook spokesperson confirmed to the Charlotte Observer that Graham had been banned from the site for 24 hours last week over the contents of a 2016 post.
“Why are they going back to 2016?” Graham, the president of the evangelism organization Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said on Fox News after discussing how the social platform moderates content on a day-to-day basis.
The Facebook spokesperson said that Graham was mistakenly banned from the site after the post in question was flagged by its content review team for violating a company policy banning “dehumanizing language” and excluding people based on factors like sexual orientation and race.
The post had targeted Bruce Springsteen for canceling a North Carolina concert at the time due to the state’s House Bill 2, or “bathroom bill.”
“He says the NC law #HB2 to prevent men from being able to use women’s restrooms and locker rooms is going ‘backwards instead of forwards,’” Graham said in reference to the singer in the post. “Well, to be honest, we need to go back! Back to God. Back to respecting and honoring His commands.”
“The problem with Facebook, if you disagree with their position on sexual orientation then you could be classified as hate speech, or that you’re a racist. This is a problem,” Graham said Sunday of the company. “The Bible is truth and I would hope [Facebook] would look to the Bible and get some instruction from God’s word.”
“Truth is truth,” he wrote. “God made the rules and His Word is truth. Actually, Facebook is censoring free speech. The free exchange of ideas is part of our country’s DNA.”
