Facebook removed three Tennessee Star articles critical of former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, the Democrat nominee for the U.S. Senate seat from Tennessee up in this November’s election, from The Tennessee Star Facebook page early Thursday morning.
By early Thursday afternoon, all three of those articles mysteriously reappeared on The Tennessee Star Facebook page, along with four other articles that had also been removed early Thursday.
All told, seven Tennessee Star articles that were posted on The Tennessee Star Facebook page shortly after midnight Thursday morning magically reappeared on The Tennessee Star Facebook page 12 hours later, at about 12:45 p.m. central time Thursday afternoon.
The three articles critical of Phil Bredesen that Facebook did not want its users to read on Thursday morning are these:
“Nashville Predator Crony Capitalist Backs Bredesen As Payback for Democrats’ Help”
“Phil Bredesen Making Millions Offering Low Cost Solar Deals, But Is He Being Totally Honest?”
The four other Tennessee Star articles temporarily removed from The Tennessee Star Facebook page are:
“Commentary: The Politicians Who Killed Mollie Tibbets”
“Controversies Surround Thompsons Station Development As November Election Approaches”
“Megan Barry May Still Have More Music to Face Over Affair”
“Metro Council Moves Forward With Subsidized $275 Million Soccer Stadium”
Bredesen’s Republican opponent in the fall general election, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-07) has been a tough critic of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the company’s privacy policies.
“Blackburn sponsored the Browser Act, which would give Internet users more control over their digital privacy. The Browser Act has gained momentum in the House after reports revealed that Cambridge Analytica used Facebook to gain access to the personal data of more than 87 million users,” Breitbart News reported in April.
“People are beginning to understand that you have a right to privacy when you go online. You have an expectation of privacy,” Blackburn said.
Blackburn also grilled Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in April during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing about Facebook’s privacy scandal.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News Tonight, Blackburn explained how Zuckerberg admitted that Facebook is “subjective in how they manipulate these algorithms” to censor conservatives.
The Tennessee Star appears to be one of many conservative news outlets that Facebook began targeting for censorship and article removal on Thursday morning.
Pajamas Media reported late Thursday that an article written by well-known conservative New York Post columnist Salena Zito was also among a number of articles temporarily censored by Facebook on Thursday morning.
“Multiple posts sharing articles by prominent conservatives have been temporarily censored on Facebook, under the excuse that they “look like spam.” Both articles dealt with the Paul Manafort conviction and the Michael Cohen guilty plea, arguing that these events were not nearly as damning to President Donald Trump as the media supposed,” Tyler O’Neill reported at Pajamas Media:
First, Facebook blocked Salena Zito, CNN contributor and author of the groundbreaking book “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics.” On Wednesday afternoon, Zito published a New York Post article explaining “Why Trump’s supporters won’t care about Cohen and Manafort’s convictions.”
On Thursday morning, she noticed something out of place. “So this is interesting… [Facebook] took down my post of my reporting for the [New York Post] — I’ve received nine separate messages from readers telling me the same thing has happened to them. ‘sup [Facebook]?” Zito asked in a tweet.
Salena Zito shared a picture of the post removed from the social media platform, with a message: “We removed this post because it looks like spam and doesn’t follow our Community Standards.”
“They did put the article back up,” Salena Zito told PJ Media. “They never responded to any of my inquiries.” The author laid out the ways she contacted Facebook: “I first put out a polite tweet, then I direct messaged them, then I sent them a message through the Facebook page, and then I sent a message through support. No answer.”
“It is becoming increasingly apparent that Facebook not only has a pattern of silencing conservative voices on their platform, it is part of an intentional effort to tip the scales in the political arena to the far Left by intentionally censoring valid and legitimate news that exposes truth they don’t like about Democrat candidates,” Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill said.
“There needs to be a fair and open alternative to Facebook that embraces diversity of opinion, particularly opinion, information and insight that is actually mainstream in the vast majority of America,” Gill added.
Facebook’s latest actions come on the heels of a number of other controversial actions taken by the far left Democrat supporting corporate giant that raise a number First Amendment issues.
“A growing number of conservatives are being targeted for censorship on Facebook,” CBN News reported earlier this month:
Last week, Facebook once again banned popular blogger Elizabeth Johnston, also known as “The Activist Mommy,” later calling the move a “mistake.”
“Apparently, I upset the ‘Thought Police’ over at Facebook with something I posted,” Johnston told CBN News Monday. “When I clicked on Facebook to post something last Wednesday, I couldn’t post and was notified I had been banned for ‘hate speech.’ Facebook refused to tell me what I posted that was hateful, so how am I supposed to prevent an infraction in the future?”
Johnston, who has more than 600,000 followers on Facebook, often speaks out on controversial social issues such as homosexuality and pornographic Sex-Ed curricula in public schools.
Facebook later issued an apology to Johnston after shutting her out.
“Other conservatives have also accused Facebook of censorship and bias,” CBN News added:
Prager University, a non-profit organization that creates videos with conservative political views, just tweeted, “We’re being heavily censored on @Facebook.”
According to the university, Facebook deleted at least two videos after labeling them “hate speech.” One of the videos addresses the need for men to be masculine again.
The Tennessee Star will continue to publish hard-hitting fact based stories about political candidates of all stripes.
[…] who is running against Republican Senate Candidate and current TN Congressman Marsha Blackburn https://tennesseestar.com/2018/08/24/…phil-bredesen/ "Activist Mommy" Elizabeth Johnston […]
Please make the Tennessee Star a newspaper that will compete with the BIAS Tennessean! They are not telling us the truth.
[…] The Tennessee Star, a conservative-leaning newspaper, reports that Facebook temporarily removed three stories that were critical of former Gov. Phil Bredesen, the Democrat nominee for U.S. Senate. […]
[…] The Tennessee Star, a conservative-leaning newspaper, reports that Facebook temporarily removed three stories that were critical of former Gov. Phil Bredesen, the Democrat nominee for U.S. Senate. […]
Americans will have to have their “WISHBONE” replaced with a “BACKBONE”,
“IF” they expect to hold on to their “Freedoms”.
And it’s progressed to the point that Liberal/Democrats won’t back down until they see some “proof” from Conservatives that they “Mean Business”.
And they won’t see that in an “Election”, Trump’s election is proof to that.
America will have to trade in their “Ballot box” for an “Ammo box”.
Dictators only understand one thing, “Force”.
Not so surprising, there’s a whole bunch of extensions for Google Chrome to mass spam FaceBook with reports designed to deplatform conservatives (but I haven’t seen any similar tools that will do the same to liberals).
The socialist democrats are desperate and have to resort to censorship and strong-arm tacky tactics to keep our voices from the public sphere.
The few classical liberals that remain in their party need to take a hard look at their future. There seem to be few like Bill Mahr speaking up in defense of free speech. There seems to be few Congressmen worried about the state of our Constitutional republic or about the oligarchy that is now ruling our country. A pox on them all.
So what will we, the “little” people, do about this? The story of David and Goliath comes to mind. You know, where the young, smaller shepherd defeats the experienced giant soldier by skill and cunning.
[…] Facebook Temporarily Censors Tennessee Star Articles Critical of Phil Bredesen […]
“INFRINGING UPON OUR CONSTITUTIONAL FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS”
Congress shall make no law… not a Constitutional violation by FB, Twitter, et al. Could a contract violation – their TOS, and a really bad move by them. The light of publicity and use of alternatives is the remedy.
I get fed up with the lame excuse that “nothing can be done about it, because Facebook, Twitter, etc. are private companies, blah, blah, blah..” They are INFRINGING UPON OUR CONSTITUTIONAL FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS. Yes, something can, and MUST BE done about Leftist censorship in ALL media outlets. Whether it be by massive class-action lawsuits, boycotts, whatever it takes to stop these Communists!