As part of its “aggressive steps to fight harmful Covid-19 misinformation on [their] platforms,” Facebook removed the page of anti-lockdown proponent Dolores Cahill, a former professor at University College Dublin.
Cahill’s page had more than 130,000 followers when it was deleted overnight.
Cahill retired from her position at UCD amid, but seemingly not because of, backlash from her comments about the virus and its vaccines.
The school dismissed calls to fire her because of the principles of academic freedom.
A spokesperson for Facebook said that since the beginning of the pandemic, it had “removed over 16 million pieces of content from facebook and Instagram containing harmful Covid-19 misinformation and have taken down groups and pages for repeatedly sharing this material.
“This includes Dolores Cahill’s Facebook Page. We’ve also added warning labels to more than 167 million pieces of additional Covid-19 content thanks to our network of fact-checking partners.”
Cahill has previously been censored by both YouTube and Facebook in the earlier days of the coronavirus saga, when she shared her anti-lockdown views.
