We ran essays on both these men, who are now banned by Facebook. Some like Laura Loomer has been banned by every social media platform out there because she has criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar, another one of our luminaries.
Facebook Inc. has banned an array of personalities whose views it deemed too inflammatory to be shared on its social network on Thursday, including Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan (May 11, 1933 Bronx NY), talk-show host Alex Jones (profiled here) and conservative Jewish activist Laura Elizabeth Loomer.
The move was Facebook’s most sweeping yet against online provocateurs. Facebook said the people it banned violated a set of policies that prohibit “dangerous individuals and organizations.” That category, as defined by Facebook, includes people or groups that have called for or carried out acts of violence, use hate speech or slurs in their descriptions or follow a hateful ideology.
“The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove these accounts today,” a Facebook spokeswoman said.
In response to the Facebook decision Mr. Yiannopoulos said, “Read Orwell. Censorship doesn’t stop at the fringes. You’re next.”
Ms. Loomer said: “It’s absurd that this is happening in America.” She added, “I have never violated the Facebook terms of service.” and has already been banned from Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Venmo, PayPal , GoFundMe and Medium, losing 90% of her income as a result.
“I can’t do anything now. I don’t have any platform,” she said. “We’re at a point in America where if these tech tyrants in Silicon Valley don’t like you, or if you piss them off, they will ban you, and they will ban everybody associated with you,” Ms. Loomer said
Facebook said it would remove pages, groups and accounts set up to represent the people banned. It also said it would remove events on Facebook when it knows one of the individuals is taking part.
Mr. Jones had recently hosted Brit Gavin McInnes, a speaker and activist, on his show Infowars. Facebook banned Mr. McInnes (July 17 1970, UK) from its platform already because he argues that Islam is not a religion of peace and that they want to destroy Western values and culture.
The author is Georgia Wells for the Wall Street Journal. You can respond to her at Georgia.Wells@wsj.com . This article appeared in the May 3, 2019, print edition of the Wall Street Journal as ‘Facebook Bans ‘Dangerous Users.’
