Facebook Is Removing Protest Pages. That’s a Terrible Precedent.
Facebook is a central hub for organizing under quarantine — the fact that it can shut down political groups at will should worry us all
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Last week, images of MAGA-hat wearing protestors, unmasked and tightly packed together on street corners, ricocheted across the internet. Their red-white-and-blue signs, reminiscent of Tea Party rallies 10 years ago, called for an end to government quarantine orders and reopening the economy. Despite his own administration’s social distancing guidance, President Trump tweeted his support. Depending on your politics — and perhaps your trust in epidemiologists — the attendees were either brave freedom-fighters resisting government overreach or reckless ideologues, risking public health to produce a moment of media spectacle.
On Monday, Recode reported that Facebook, after consulting with state governments, had removed certain event pages for in-person rallies against coronavirus lockdowns in California, New Jersey, and Nebraska. The decision was met with immediate backlash from conservatives like Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Donald Trump Jr., who accused Facebook of “colluding with state governments to quash people[’]s free speech.” Meanwhile, the decision was welcomed by some liberals, like Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, who tweeted, “Powerful special interests are using astroturfing & dangerous tactics to undermine the fight against COVID-19. Facebook is right to take a stand against harmful misinformation.”
A Facebook spokesperson clarified to Politico that it had reached out to state officials to “understand the scope of their orders, not about removing specific protests.” The decision, the spokesperson said, was ultimately Facebook’s. “We remove the posts when gatherings do not follow the health parameters established by the government and are therefore unlawful,” the spokesperson said.
Still, the move raises serious questions about the role of social platforms during the pandemic — and not just among those sympathetic to anti-quarantine rallies. Social distancing has eliminated many of the traditional methods for effectively leveraging political energy against decision-makers. Activists and…
