A Journalist Challenges Facebook For Cancelling Tommy Robinson
Last February Tommy Robinson was deleted from Facebook. Twitter had cancelled him months before. YouTube took extraordinary measures against his channel too without removing it. It was no coincidence that Panodrama had just been released and racked up more than 1 million views on Facebook in under 24 hours! Suddenly Facebook announces (to the press first) that Tommy Robinson has been calling for the beheading of Muslims: they don't have a screenshot, but he has done this.
This was all bullshit. And the more than a million followers Tommy's page had gained on Facebook clearly indicated huge public interest in what he had to say. What has followed in the months since is a very obvious policy on Facebook to remove almost all references to Tommy Robinson. If a post is very negative, it is allowed to remain. Clearly, only unchallenged and defamatory material is allowed on Facebook.
This has not been challenged by any mainstream journalists in the UK. None. Only alternative news sources have said anything about it.
Until that is, Lotte Folke, from Danish TV Station DR2 decided to run this story about the large number of people, even in Denmark, who have either been deleted from Facebook or at least had suspensions and posts removed merely for mentioning Tommy Robinson.
The following video is a run-through of the important points arising from this interview (which will be posted in full below). You can also read the translated transcript on Gates of Vienna.
Here are some of the points I make:
- Lotte is the first journalists to ask Facebook directly for the evidence of what it claimed he did to deserve to be removed.
- Facebook haven't ever produced screenshots of problematic posts and can't produce them.
- The claims made by Facebook can't be confirmed by any journalists.
- The process by which people are chosen to be removed is entirely internal within Facebook though they may consult "experts".
- No details of these processes will be provided to journalists.
- Facebook wishes there were global rules for "hate speech".
- Facebook is not content to just apply rules against illegal speech, they must go much further and prevent people being harmed by "hate speech".
If you're interested in a legal effort to challenge Facebook (in a way that could inflict a financial blow on them which could threaten the existence of the entire company, take a look at this post.
The full original interview with subtitles is here on the Rair Foundation Website.
Posted from TR.News with SteemPress : https://www.tr.news/a-journalist-challenges-facebook-for-cancelling-tommy-robinson/