If Facebook is concerned about a growing chorus of accusations that the social media giant suppresses some voices and elevates others in accord with the company's prevailing political biases, that's not obvious in the firm's latest purge of political pages and accounts.
On Thursday, October 11, Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's Head of Cybersecurity Policy and Oscar Rodriguez, Product Manager, announcedthe company was shutting down 559 pages and 251 accounts "created to stir up political debate." Allegedly, the targets were guilty of "coordinated inauthentic behavior" intended "to mislead others about who they are, and what they are doing." The targeted pages and accounts included many pages, and their administrators, who have gained popularity by voicing ideas outside the mainstream—including skepticism of violent and intrusive police tactics and support for libertarian ideas.
"We lost a 190K page that we started in 2010," Matt Bergman, an administrator of Punk Rock Libertarians, told me with regard to the reach of the page Facebook shut down without warning. "I also [ran] the Daily Liberator page which had 95K people on there. Now we're starting over with a page that has less than 400 people on it."
Read Full Article »