Facebook deleted Garland’s NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Page. The removal, which the company did not explain, happened just days before events the organization had organized in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.
Facebook says it deletes pages that violate community standards, such as violence, misinformation, and inauthentic administrator profiles.
“Our Community Standards apply to everyone, all around the world, and to all types of content,” read a Facebook statement about their standards. “They’re designed to be comprehensive — for example, content that might not be considered hateful may still be removed for violating a different policy.”
However, it is unclear what community standards Garland’s NAACP chapter supposedly broke and they haven’t been informed.
“They gave us no explanation,” said NAACP member Gwendolyn Daniels, who said she has been coordinating Garland’s MLK celebrations for 30 years. “Our initial challenge this year was having to cancel our whole weekend of in-person MLK events and create a virtual program instead. But we did it.”
She added that they did not receive any warning or a chance to fix whatever they did wrong. The chapter has emailed Facebook requesting an explanation for the removal. Meanwhile, they will broadcast the virtual events on their YouTube channel.
Daniels thinks that the removal of the page is connected to the social media company’s recent crackdown following the Jan 6 riots in the US Capitol.
“Of all times, right before our big virtual program, this awful thing happened to us,” she said. “I am going to personally research this to determine how many other NAACP units were affected by Facebook following the national events over the past week.”
