A populist – and popular – UK news website says it is dealing with censorship imposed by Facebook over a story about a British politician’s bid to become a member of the European Parliament (EP) in mid-May elections.
Politicalite UK writes that Facebook informed them their page had been “unpublished” – leaving the media outlet unable to reach 40,000 followers it had amassed on the global social media platform.
The website’s editor in chief Jordan James was informed of this and had his account banned for 30 days.
The story that seems to have prompted Facebook’s decision concerns Tommy Robinson, a British political activist who has announced plans to stand as an independent MEP in the UK.
Meanwhile, Politicalite said it has fallen victim to censorship, despite being a legitimate British media outlet, as have other Robinson’s supporters after he moved to prove alleged bias on the part of UK’s public service broadcaster, the BBC – in a documentary entitled, “Panodrama,” that the report said was still available on YouTube.
In it, Robinson claims that instead of exercising journalistic integrity and neutrality, the BBC had teamed up with the dubious group “Hope not Hate” – whom Breitbart describes as a British version of the controversial US organization Southern Poverty Law Center (SPCL).
Breitbart reported earlier that Google had cut Politicalite’s ad revenue stream, while PayPal suspended its service to the website, again over their coverage of Robinson’s activities.
Robinson himself was previously banned from Facebook and its image sharing platform Instagram, accused of repeatedly violating their “hate speech” rules.
When it comes to Facebook’s “unpublishing” on the British website, Breitbart said Politicalite was “under attack by a combination of algorithm changes and unfair suspensions by the big tech Masters of the Universe.”
Politicalite, for its part, said it would respond to Facebook’s decision repeatedly censoring their reporting by giving up on the social media platform, and focusing instead on reporting using Twitter live streams.
