Reporting on Persecution of Christians Offends Facebook's 'Standards'
Apparently, reporting on the horrific persecution Christian minorities experience in the Muslim world is a punishable offense for Facebook, as that topic falls beneath the social media giant's "standards."
That's what I was told when I logged onto my Facebook account a few days ago. A box popped up saying, "This post goes against our Community Standards," followed by, "Only you can see this post because it goes against our community standards," with a link to the offensive post in question. I was then locked out for 24 hours.
The problematic article in question, which I published online and shared on Facebook back on Feb. 15, 2021 — a full eight months ago — is titled "New Film Commemorates 21 Coptic Christian Martyrs." In it, I discussed how an Arabic-language film was being made about the 21 Egyptian Christians savagely slaughtered by the Islamic State in Libya in 2015.
To be sure, I'm familiar with and a regular recipient of Facebook's other tactics — especially "shadowbanning": making my posts appear live on my end, though no one or only a few see them. (I know this only because I've gotten so many messages over the years from Facebook users saying, "How come you haven't posted anything in months?" even though I upload some three or four posts every week. Others regularly message me saying things like, "Facebook has disconnected the 'Share' button on the top menu of your page" (from a 10/27/21 message).
So what is it about that particular article that — eight months after it was first shared on Facebook — caused it to be banned and me punished? If it's the accompanying picture, which in my opinion is hardly that graphic, Facebook could've done what it has done to other articles of mine: keep the post but remove the image. Aside from mentioning the movie, that article recaps the execution of 2015, quotes some family members' views on the forthcoming film, and closes by mentioning how a memorial for the 21 Christian martyrs was erected in the Egyptian village of Al Our, whence several of them hailed.
Around the same time that article got taken down from Facebook, on Oct. 15, 2021, the following comment appeared under another much more recent articleon my website — one also about the Muslim persecution of Christians in Egypt:
I shared this article on Facebook and Facebook took it down saying it violated "Community Standards" with no further explanation given.
That article, titled "Coptic Christian Building Abruptly Demolished in Egypt," merely summarized the findings of an Arabic-language report about how Christian minorities in one Egyptian village, because they were banned from having a church, decided to build a community hall to hold their weddings and funerals in. As even that was deemed offensive to Muslim sensibilities, the authorities suddenly came, tore it down, and beat and arrested the Christians. Everything about that account is also 100% true.
No comments:
Post a Comment