This article is very different from anything we’ve written in the past. While our normal policy is to not write anything to which we are directly related, we have been forced to make an exception. Over the past month, I have uploaded three YouTube videos. The videos not only explain the apparent attack on the “War on Corruption” platform, it goes to detail the progressive censorship of my own account. Though I had hoped for a resolution, Facebook has adamantly refused to address any message I’ve sent to them. In fact, they’ve only increased the various forms of censorship to my account and my platform.
Censorship: Phase I
In the beginning, what Facebook had done was nothing more than a slight annoyance. With no explanation, not even a noted policy violation, I had found that my account had been blocked from commenting or replying to political pages. This means that I could not interact with any political figure, this immediately caught my attention. At this point and time, I was still able to comment, reply, and even post to other pages, groups, etc. At this time, I was oblivious to just how far Facebook would take this censorship.
Censorship: Phase II
After about a week of dealing with the original block, Facebook apparently decided that it was time to do additional blocks. Upon trying to post a comment to a group, which I had been able to do the previous day, I found that I had been restricted from doing so. As with the original block, no reason was given explaining why my account had been restricted. The censorship wouldn’t end here. If it did, this article wouldn’t exist. Within twenty-four hours of this new restriction, I was restricted from commenting and replying to all pages and groups. However, at this point and time, I was still able to post on the “WoC” page, though commenting and replying had now been restricted.
Censorship: Phase III
For the next few weeks, I progressively became agitated over the restriction. On top of running this media platform, I compose and sell music online. At this point and time, this had remained untouched by the nefarious goons of Facebook. However, War on Corruption had now been completely restricted from me. I could no longer post, comment, reply, or even send private messages from the platform’s page. It was, at this point that we decided to begin the process of removing WoC from Facebook completely. During this period, Facebook added yet another new restriction. Not only was I unable to post, comment, reply, or send PM’s, I now could no longer join or leave groups. Worst yet, Facebook wasn’t even finished playing this illegal form of censorship.
Censorship: Phase IV
With this, we are now up to date with the current situation. At this point, Facebook has removed my ability to post, comment, and reply from my personal profile. Furthermore, the page I have, to which I promote my side gig of music, has also been slammed by the social media giant. This means that, on two different platforms, Facebook has not only censored me, but they’ve even cut a form of my income: music. But it doesn’t end there. Out of our team of seven, five of us have been targeted in this exact same manner, all without reason or explanation. Though all of us have tried to appeal it, the results are the same. The appeal process itself has been restricted from all of us.
This means that while we have the option to appeal, should we attempt to do so it will fail to go through; Facebook will never even know that we’ve tried to fight it. As of now, our platform is being operated by two individuals of our team, the only two who have not been targeted with this illegal act. Meanwhile, I continue my search for a civil rights attorney. Not only for our team, but for the various other platforms, and individuals, targeted by Facebook.
Conclusion
With much discussion, we do have a lead into what instigated the censorship: I was critical of a specific political figure, one that Facebook supports. With their censorship, they’ve not only shown how far they will go to stop anybody who opposes their political views, they have demonstrated how far they will go to silence any journalist who speaks against those to which they support.
We aren’t writing this article to bring awareness to what is happening to our platform, we are writing this to warn other journalists, and truth seekers, of what Facebook is willing to do to silence them. We have full expectation that Facebook will shut us down. Since the time of the initial restriction, we have watched as our platform stats spiraled into oblivion. With this, we have absolutely no doubt that, much like our team, our platform is being shadow banned by the site.
During what many call the “purge,” Facebook wiped out over a dozen media platforms from their site. Among them: “Freedom Though Project,” who had well over a million followers. The habitual pattern of Facebook is to target independent media, why not? They can’t buy us off unlike the corporate giants of the media world. While Facebook continues to hold its position of being a “private” company, this is factually untrue. Facebook had ceased being a private company when they entered the public domain, the Stock Market. While this has many financial benefits for the site, it has a lot of legal disadvantages. Among them, violating constitutional rights.
Though we have no expectation of the platform surviving this, on Facebook at least, we have begun moving to other sites. Below, are links to our new locations. We hope to see you there just as we hope that Facebook will cease this unjust activity.
