Facebook is at it again!

20th February 2020 / United Kingdom

TruePublica Editor: I despise Facebook wholeheartedly. I wish there was a better way to reach audiences, sadly, it’s just not that easy. We refuse to hand over highly sensitive personal information such as our passports, bank statements, personal addresses and payment information – and quite specifically our location details wherever we may be. The consequence is that our Facebook page will not be functional from midnight tonight. We have categorically refused to pay Facebook to promote our own content and do not promote any third party adverts – we never have done.

Facebook has not responded to any of our questions to their dubious demands.

It’s really about censorship. Facebook has been fined $billions for their law-breaking and malfeasance all over the world. So their response is to take advantage and under the guise of transparency are demanding that every device we use is logged onto their systems of control, including our own personal mobile phones. Location settings have to be switched on so they can log us out and provide SMS pin numbers for us to regain access. This is not helpful when crossing international territories where the safety of journalists is itself ambiguous. It is amazing to think that to use this ‘social media’ platform, we have to be identifiable and locatable at all times and hand over payment, passport and driving licence details.

This is the way of the modern-day global censorship machines. Twitter suspended us for the first time for making comment about Prince Andrew (and the Weinstein case) for suggesting a swap with Anne Sacoolas, the American woman who killed Harry Dunn and escaped British justice under the false guise of ‘diplomatic immunity’. We were not rude, inflammatory or personal, it’s just that the idea went viral and someone ‘up-top’ didn’t like it.

We get constant messages from Facebook about paying them to ‘promote’ our own content to our own audience and because we don’t, our organic growth is forcibly limited. One could say that Facebook is a private company and they can, therefore, do as they please. I would accept this if the authorities in Britain used their powers, as they should, to stop the global dominance of this outlet and balance it with competition. It doesn’t do this because it is in bed with it. Think Cambridge Analytica!

However, we are resigned to the fact that Facebook provides TruePublica with its biggest exposure and audience and because much of the content is shared our site visitors have grown month on month – even if the numbers of Facebook followers never moves up from one year to the next. In the last three months, nearly a million people have visited TruePublica – but Facebook followers have not increased at all – not one, because we won’t pay them. In any event, we still have to hand over all this information, which is frankly plain dangerous and would, at best, be stupid to do on our part.

The problem is that we are not all permanently located in the comparative safety of the UK or somewhere like the USA. I regularly travel across Europe and the Middle East. Anyone posting on the TruePublica Facebook account has to declare through their devices where they are. And as said, I am not prepared to give my own personal passport details to an organisation whose raison d’être is abusing privacy laws. We are being bullied by a global entity into submission. Many independent news outlets have complained of the same treatment. There is even a blacklist of independent news outlets that Facebook censors.

Facebook started by censoring extreme views on websites such as Alex Jones. Then they censored ‘borderline‘ content, then just plain free-speech, until we get to targeted outlets of oppositional voices or dissenters. In the meantime, Zuckerberg has refused to stop highly dubious sources of political ads immersed in fake news and misleading content to be censored – because there’s more profit in it than promoting the truth.

And they are all at it now. Amazon is even withdrawing books and content that has to comply with its new highly opaque rule of ‘providing a positive customer experience’. If you’re a critic of the global oligarchs or their facilitators, then your voicebox is about to be ripped out – metaphorically speaking.

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Rob Woodward – journalist for TruePublica

This is a serious threat to the operation of TruePublica. If we can’t fund the website – and we need visitors to do that, then we’ll have no choice. That is unless Facebook decides to alter its course, which it won’t.

We are expecting a visitor fall of one third.

TruePublica was viciously attacked just over six months ago by hackers that then required the website to be completely rebuilt. After a lot of work and money, we relaunched and have reached new records every month only to be challenged by the suppression strategies of the oligarchs. I guess its confirmation we were doing something right.

In the meantime, Rob Woodward, our investigative journalist, has opened a Facebook page (which he said he would never do) to help TruePublica keep in the fight. We’d really appreciate it if you followed that page (LINK HERE) because going viral every now and then is our only means of survival.