Melissa Fine writes for BizPac Review about a disturbing example of partisan censorship at Facebook.
While Elon Musk may be blowing the doors off censorship on Twitter, it appears Facebook is still all-in on running cover for the Biden administration.
The Spectator’s most recent cover dared to poke fun at President Biden’s questionable cognitive abilities, depicting him holding up five fingers under the headline, “Six more years.”
When the magazine attempted to run the cover as an ad on Facebook — something it has done with many of its satirical covers — it was told the cover “didn’t ‘comply with advertising policies,’” according to the magazine’s editor, Fraser Nelson, who took to Twitter, where such things are now permissible, to break the news.
“Facebook have just told us we can’t run this cover as an advert (as we normally do for our covers),” he tweeted on Thursday. “Is it really too mean? We could change it, have him hold up six fingers, then try again…”
The magazine appealed Facebook’s decision, to no avail.
“We’ve appealed to Facebook – saying we’re a political mag, all of our covers are political,” Nelson wrote. “Appeal rejected.”
“It seems satire directed at Biden is rejected by Facebook (or its bots) but when we mocked Trump, Boris, Truss etc that was all fine and fair comment,” he added. “Funny old world.”
The editor went on to explain that Facebook didn’t bother to explain how the cover violated the platform’s policies.
“You asked for another review of your rejected ads,” Facebook told Nelson. “After another review, it’s been determined that they still don’t comply with our Advertising Policies.”
“Doesn’t say why not. Nothing about wrong person posting, etc.,” Nelson tweeted. “We run Spectator covers all the time as FB ads, usually mocking politicians…”
UK political analyst Joe Armitage cited an alleged quote from Nick Clegg, president of Global Affairs at Meta, the parent of Facebook, who reportedly once said, “Freedom of speech and a free press are at the very heart of our liberal, democratic society.”
“Maybe the Californian sun adjusted his views,” Armitage sarcastically speculated.