Censorship

by Infoshop News

August 24, 2016 -- Facebook has deleted Infoshop's Facebook page and suspended several of our admins over a Black Lives Matter image that we've been using as our profile pic for months. This come on the heels of months of censorship of images and content that we've been posting to Facebook. Our volunteers have been subject to arbitrary suspensions of our Facebook accounts. Today, Facebook suspended one of our main admins for a month, the second one month ban in as many months. Another, less active volunteer who hasn't posted anything in two months, was suspended for 24 hours. Another volunteer admin is near the end of a one month ban.

As the dank memes of Weird Facebook continue to filter into the mainstream web, sowing laughter, confusion, and fury in almost equal measure, the admins and followers of pages like “Everything Is a Social Construct” and “Nihilist Memes” are gearing up for war.

This time, their target is not the “normie” outsiders who have diluted and damaged their meme aesthetic, but Facebook itself. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 8, 2016

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Facebook Censors Left-Leaning Pages and Alternative News Services

On July 31st, Facebook suspended the Facebook page for Infoshop.org, after several months of suspending page admins for posting various memes, graphics and updates.

At the same time, Facebook has been suspending other left-leaning pages and suspending personal account privileges for admins associated with those pages. The page for Red & Black Anarchists, which had over 95,000 fans, was totally suspended several weeks ago. The same thing happened to Solarpunk Anarchists and other political web pages. The exact number is unknown, as page and account suspensions interfere with the ability of people to announce these suspensions or communicate with each other.

by Infoshop News
July 31, 2016
Facebook has censored Infoshop's Facebook page again, sanctioning one of our main admins for a month, and removing the page from public view. This is the second of our admins suspended for a month, after posting memes that were probably reported to Facebook by racists hostile to our project. Facebook has informed us that the page isn't even visible to our 28,000 followers. We can't post anything for two weeks anyway, since another admin was suspended for a month.
The posted graphic that got the page suspended again is shown here. It is a meme that has been posted to a variety of fan pages and personal profiles. It depicts a bunch of historical racist signs. Given that our project is anti-racist and prominently supports the Black Lives Matter movement, it has to be seen in that context.

from Black Lives Matter, eQualit.ie, May First/People Link, and Design Action Collective

The official Black Lives Matter website has experienced a massive denial of service attack starting this past weekend and continuing at this time. The site remains functional due largely to the protections provided by Deflect, a program made available by eQualit.ie.

Black Lives Matter, a May First/People Link member that is supported by the Design Action Collective, is a central organization in the response movement against police abuse, brutality and misconduct. It was expected that, after a week of vigorous protest against last week’s horrific and unprovoked killings by police of Philando Castile in St Paul, Minnesota, and Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, there would be a surge in legitimate traffic to the BLM website.