Republican Atheists has been snagged again by Facebook
Just weeks after Republican Atheists’ Facebook page went live again on Facebook, it has been snagged again! This time Facebook limited my personal Facebook account, the primary account I use to post content to Republican Atheists’ Facebook page and groups, from posting content. Apparently, according to Facebook, I have been posting “too frequently.” The account limitation on posting to my Facebook pages has been in place since February 23, 2020, with no date given of when it will be lifted.
I was using Facebook as I normally have during the last few years of managing Republican Atheists’ Facebook page and groups, when suddenly a notice appeared when I tried to share content on one of my Facebook pages. The notice stated, “We limit how often you can post, comment or do other things in a given amount of time in order to help protect the community from spam. You can try again later.” At first I thought this limitation would be in place for a couple hours at most, but it has been place for over a week now and I do not know when it will be lifted.
The next day the same notice appeared when I tried to post in a Facebook group I manage. I learned that I was actually limited from posting in ALL Facebook groups I am a member of. Within 48 hours the Facebook group limitation was lifted, but then was suddenly set back in place when I attempted to share a post once to a group. I am still unable to post to Facebook groups, meaning I cannot post content to any of Republican Atheists’ groups. This severely hinders communication within Republican Atheists’ following.
There is an option to respond to Facebook in the notice. I have responded to the notice three times, but unfortunately I have not received any communication from Facebook. I do not know of any other way to contact Facebook.
Even if the limitation was lifted, will it be put in place again if I share a post one time to a group? Co-editors have been installed for Republican Atheists’ Facebook page to continue posting content, but it is tedious for me to send them content with captions to post.
Why does any of this matter in the grand scheme of things? This limitation means less interaction from Republican Atheists with the public on Facebook (one of our primary communication platforms), and less coverage of political news and organization updates. This means there is less public awareness of the organization Republican Atheists, which impacts the political landscape in America.
I consider this to be aggressive censorship from Facebook.
Please help draw awareness to the censorship of Republican Atheists by contacting Republican groups, media outlets and political organizations. If you know of groups or organizations that can help draw awareness to this censorship, and think we should contact them, please let us know. You can email info[at]republicanatheists.com.
Lauren Ell is President and Founder of Republican Atheists. She is a business owner, consultant, marketer and communications strategist. Contact Lauren Ell here. Follow Lauren Ell on Facebook and Twitter.
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Facebook is free to set up their own private company policies. Same way that religious organizations are free to set up their policies within the 1st Amendment parameters. Censoring as you mean is only applied to governmental censoring of political or religious speech. Facebook’s censoring is no a legal and constitutional definition of censoring. It is a civil contract between you and FB and not applicable as it is a different category of speech. When you signed up for your free FB account, FB has exclusive right at their own discretion to determine your parameters of speech – the same way they just went down recently on fake/ antivaxxers news about treating coronavirus. It’s a double edge sword. Facebook has very sophisticated algorithms that are nearly 99.99999% (five sigma) fool proof. If you are not aware of the term, look itup. I know of a friend of mine who belongs to several political FB groups and he is regularly blocked by Facebook and is placed in the so called “Facebook jail” with the suspension of his account for typically 30 days. This happened several times over past year and even before. He cannot even post to his own personal FB page. His wife updated us on it. The probabilities are that you have posted using your FB account to some FB groups or commented on a news site using your FB account when you logged in to it (many news websites now allow you to log in with your FB account) and too many people down voted your post or reported it as inappropriate. I run multiple FB groups and not a single time have I been denied posting to my own groups or to my personal FB page. All the best.
Thank you for the comment Christina. I have been managing multiple Facebook pages and groups for years and have always been conscious of posting respectable content (not “fake news” and memes) and being courteous to others, and have never had problems until recently. First Republican Atheists’ Facebook page was taken down for 10 days with no specific reason provided, or communication from Facebook. Now my personal account has been limited from posting to ALL my Facebook pages since February 23, 2020, again with no specific reason provided or communication. Of course Facebook is allowed to manage users how it chooses, but this does not excuse it from being publicly criticized, just as any business is not excused from public criticism. – Lauren Ell