You may have heard about the censorship of social media on individuals such as Donald Trump and those doctors and other medical professionals from over in aways who had an alternative view about the c-19 plandemic and the vaccines. There is a ten to one chance you will say: “Can’t happen here in Barbados”. Think again!
Barbadians may have slowed down the government’s move to pass the Cyber Crime Bill but unknown to most Barbadians and Caribbean citizens, the government has as active censorship regime with Facebook.
To understand how this censorship works you have to first understand what Facebook calls an advertisement. Normally we think of an advertisement as a message about a product or commercial service. However, on Facebook an advertisement can be an article about anything; for example, religion, politics, tourism, housing.
The second thing you have to appreciate is that the advertising we are discussing is for those who have what is called a “business account” on Facebook. Bear in mind that the term “business account” is a catchall for the traditional entity that sells goods such as shoes, commercial services such as landscaping as well as any other type of organization such a church, an artist’s gallery, gay rights club or a political party.
For example, if your name is Flora Cain, you may have a personal account on Facebook but you can also have a “business” page called FC Enterprises on Facebook. These two are separate but connected. Technically, you can “advertise” (“boost”) a post on FC Enterprises but not on Flora Cain.
If you want people to see what you post as Flora Cain you rely on the general Facebook algorithm to direct your post to friends etcetera. If you post as FC Enterprises you can leave your post to the mercy of the algorithm or you can boost it so that it is shown to an audience you specify.
The reader must understand that by “advertisement” we do not necessarily mean an ad for a product or service. Facebook treats an article like any product and therefore it can be boosted. For example, one can write and boost an article on faith or housing or an analysis of voting systems.
So far so good. However, Facebook has a so-called ads policy that will reject an advertisement or boost that falls under the following categories unless the author goes through a process of applying for special permission.
In other words, if you create an article, say, on the government’s housing programme and you wish boost it so that more people can see it in a shorter time, Facebook will reject it unless you get special permission from them!
It does not matter whether you are writing something good or bad about government’s housing. On top of that, FB has the audacity to tell you that it reviews your ads using automated technology!
This category called social issues, elections and politics is an interesting category. Here is what Facebook says about it.
The obvious first question we must ask is who gives Facebook the right to restrict speech in our countries of the Caribbean. Assuming that right could be established, the second critical question is what competence does Facebook have to determine what advertising a society can or should consume?
Can you imagine some 20-year-old geek who has spent more hours behind a computer screen than actually living in the world trying to figure what is proper for individual four times his or her age to consume? This is preposterous! But it gets worse.
Government Complicity
As you read above, Facebook claims that it has agreements with various government over what advertising can be permitted in different countries. Let’s see what is has for Barbados.
We find Barbados under the heading:
This heading by itself, is telling us that Barbados (according to Facebook) has authorization and disclaimer requirements for running ads on “social issues, elections and politics”. Let’s see what this category is really about.
And what are those requirements for Barbados?
Furthermore:
It does not take a degree in rocket science to understand that if Facebook rejects an advertisement or boost – that you are paying for by the way- that it is in essence stifling free speech or in other words censoring speech. Furthermore, it is colluding with government in trying to identify individuals who run ads, in particular political ads. Not even our local news houses require this!
Not Isolated
The president of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that the company censors speech at the direction of governments. He has admitted doing so with Hunter Biden laptop, covid-19 and suppressing the opposition in Viet Nam.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62688532
The Canadians are currently suing Facebook for 100 million dollars for discrimination against it with respect to advertising for jobs. Click the link below to listen to the Youtube video outlining this case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7bzwAM3G2Y
Call to Action
It is time we dealt with the excesses of Facebook. The problem with entities like Facebook is that they think they are too big to be broken. That is pure arrogance. The Titanic was billed as unsinkable yet it sank. The financial industry has had the same attitude for a long time but clearly banks and financial institutions are not doing so well today. Tine and attrition does the work. So, let us in the Caribbean tell Facebook where to get off. Let’s start by putting pressure on our governments.
