Did Facebook really censor a political message?

One would think that Facebook had learned its lesson about censorship. It has a hard enough time keeping self-harm and pornography off its pages and has run into troubles in the past over less-controversial censorship accusations.

Now, Breitbart is reporting that a meme published by the Special Operations Speaks Political Action Committee (SOS PAC) was removed and the person who posted it was given a 24-hour “time out” from posting other images on Facebook.

The message was contained in a meme which demonstrated how Obama had relied on the SEALS when he was ready to let them get Osama bin Laden, and how he had turned around and denied them when they called for backup on Sept 11.

If this is true and Facebook is now in the business of taking down political messages that fall well-within the realm of free speech, they have some explaining to do. We’ve read the terms of service a few different times over the years (at least once every time they change it) and this is could only fall under the realm of offensive if they want to point in that direction. Unfortunately for Facebook, there is much more offensive content posted on a regular basis that never gets taken down.

Is this an unwritten policy at Facebook? Is it a rogue moderator who supports the president’s re-election campaign? Could it be something more sinister? We’ll probably never know, but regardless of which side of the political aisle you’re on it’s a hard argument to make that this was too offensive to be on the walls of Facebook pages.

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“Censorship” image courtesy of Shutterstock.