Facebook and Twitter both purged over 800 popular alternative media pages on Thursday, in one of the biggest attacks on the free press in American history.
The Big Tech giants said in a statement that many of the affected pages were allegedly sharing links between groups using fake accounts – causing the pages to artificially boost their engagement numbers.
This “inauthentic behavior” violates Facebook’s anti-spam policies and goes against “what people expect” from Facebook, the company said.
Information Liberation reports: During the civil war, Abraham Lincoln shut down a few newspapers.
Mark Zuckerberg just shut down 559 pages and 251 accounts — which include tons of massive independent media sites with millions of followers run by Americans — a few weeks out from the midterms.
Jack Dorsey followed it up by banning many of the same independent news sites and the journalists who ran them on Twitter.
The pages included The Free Thought Project, Press For Truth, Anti-Media, Cop Block, Filming Cops, Counter Current News, Right Wing News, Noisy Room, Gun Laws Don’t Work, Reverb Press, Nation in Distress, Clash Daily, Voluntaryist Veterans and many more.
Antiwar critics of establishment politics @AntiMedia and @TFTPROJECT just had their pages with millions of followers deleted by Facebook, along with hundreds of other alternative media outlets. Latest escalation of corporate censorship used as state censorship in the west. pic.twitter.com/Fdk9Yd13jI
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 11, 2018
UPDATE: It's coordinated. Twitter's shutting them down too.https://t.co/QInTJJZMYD
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 11, 2018
UPDATE: Free Thought Project @TFTPROJECT now gone from both Facebook and Twitter as well. There's definitely some kind of coordination or overlap going on behind the scenes between the two platforms.
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 12, 2018
Holy shit. The Anti-Media’s Page was just removed from Twitter. So Twitter and Facebook are coordinating this.
I know this literally just happened because they RT’ed me an hour ago. pic.twitter.com/RFi280YERD
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) October 11, 2018
Carey Wedler of Antimedia was suspended from Twitter during today’s indie media/anarchist social media purge.
The email says “specifically for” and that part is blank.
Specifically for nothing. Specifically for lacking the approval of the mainstream media and the state. pic.twitter.com/U8Xal4QSvD
— Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) October 12, 2018
I’ve been memory holed from FaceBook! 350k followers poof gone! There is a dangerous precedent being set here where the big tech companies have appointed themselves as the gate keepers of political thought and opinion! Retweet this if you care about free-speech! #FreeDicks pic.twitter.com/LsnZvaJyOL
— Dan Dicks (@DanDicksPFT) October 11, 2018
In conservative media, @johnhawkinsrwn is an OG. Started Right Wing News in *2001* & was at vanguard of blogosphere. Now he's targeted by @facebook @Twitter & @nytimes in pre-midterm SV purge of righties.
This is no accident & John is not alone.
Silence is complicity. https://t.co/2eUGPEb28U
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) October 11, 2018
Terresa at Noisy Room is another old school original conservative blogger swept up in the @Facebook pre-midterm election purge. We see you, Silicon Valley. https://t.co/qBShcOJse2
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) October 11, 2018
Ahead of the midterms, Facebook purged 800 politically oriented pages on the grounds of spamming and “inauthentic messaging.” But Rachel’s account is real & has done none of this. Maybe she just strayed outside FB’s arbitrary political boundaries. https://t.co/paVPMaUxiu https://t.co/KQ8x9WsthR
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) October 11, 2018
This is an unprecedented attack on the free press — yet the media which whines about Trump for merely criticizing them is cheering this Orwellian purge on with near-total uniformity.
The Trump administration needs to move immediately to counteract this evil corporate censorship!
These sites have become monopolies and they’re colluding together to shut down the actual free press in this country to help the Democrats and the legacy media!
If this isn’t a blatant violation of antitrust laws then what the hell is?
UPDATE: The Free Thought Project was also just banned from Twitter:
annnndd now @TFTPROJECT just got banned on twitter and facebook on the same day with no explanation
— John Vibes (@JohnGVibes) October 12, 2018