Facebook closed down 559 pages and 251 personal accounts on Thursday. Sputnik takes a look at the omnipotent website’s long track record of censorship.
Facebook said on Thursday, October 11, it was closing pages which were “working to mislead others about who they are, and what they are doing.”
But Jason Bassler, co-founder of one of the pages, The Free Thought Project, told Sputnik it was set up to counter “mainstream media’s bullsh*t narratives.”
“We were verified by Facebook with a little check mark next to our name, so they know we are a legitimate organization/outlet,” Mr. Bassler told Sputnik.
Fascistbook is censoring anarchists completely now, under the guise of being anti-spam. Hundreds of anarchist’s pages shut down #FacebookPurge https://t.co/tvtXmClmJ0
— Lorie Meacham (@LorieMeacham) October 12, 2018
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This is by no means the first time Facebook has taken down pages amid controversy.
Alex Jones of InfoWars Banned — August 2018
In August 2018 Facebook joined Apple, YouTube and Spotify in banning conservative radio host Alex Jones, who runs the Infowars website.
Facebook removed four pages — the Alex Jones Channel Page, the Alex Jones Page, the Infowars Page and the Infowars Nightly News Page — after the social network imposed a 30-day ban on Jones “for his role in posting violating content to these pages”.
”More content from the same pages has been reported to us — upon review, we have taken it down for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanising language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies,” said Facebook.
Jones has floated several conspiracy theories about various events, including…