Facebook censorship in the UK

In recent months social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have played important roles in the opposition to brutal undemocratic autocracies across the middle east, causing western commentators to sing their praises and struggling middle eastern dictators to shut them down entirely as part of their last desperate attempts to cling onto power.

Back in the UK it is a different story with Facebook carrying out a large-scale account deletion drive against UK based anti-establishment Facebook accounts on the royal wedding day which also saw large scale police action across London to prevent anti-monarchy protesters from exercising their rights to free speech. It was seemingly an exercise of power on the day that the idle rich chose to rub our faces in their centuries old inherited privilege and that the establishment yet again act as if free speech officially is a crime against the state.

Activist organisations that had their accounts sumerily deleted include Save NHS, UK Uncut Bristol, York Anarchists, Sheffield Occupation, Central London SWP, North London Solidarity, Chesterfield Stopthecuts, Camberwell AntiCuts, Tower Hamlets Greens, No Cuts, ArtsAgainst Cuts, London Student Assembly & dozens more.

The pretext for these deletions is that these organisations should have created Facebook pages rather than registering as Facebook user profiles, in violation of their "real names policy". It seems to be no coincidence that lots of UK left leaning anti-establishment pages were targeted while far right extremist groups registered as individual users have been left alone to continue spreading their hate.

Facebook implicitly supports the racist EDL
as they chose not to apply the same profile deletion technicality
to EDL groups in Nottingham, Tamworth, Dorset & Carlisle.

The fact that Facebook has been selectively deleting only UK based left leaning anti-establishment accounts suggests that they have been presented with a list of anti-establishment profiles and have carried out this purge under request.

Anyone with experience of Facebook's intransigence when the public try to get a hate page taken down must realise that such a large scale operation must have been requested by someone powerful within the UK establishment, someone from within the government or police perhaps.

To me it is sickening that Facebook chose to disrupt the legitimate activities of activist groups like Save NHS and UK Uncut using a technicality that they are unwilling to apply to far-right nationalist Facebook hate mongers like the EDL, especially on a day of national flag waving.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of the organisations disrupted by Facebook's royal wedding day profile deletions.

• Save NHS
• Socialist Unity
• No Cuts
• Tower Hamlets Greens
• Bristol Bookfair
• Open Birkbeck
• UWE Occupation
• Chesterfield Stopthecuts
• Camberwell AntiCuts
• IVA Womensrevolution
• ArtsAgainst Cuts
• London Student Assembly
• Beat’n Streets
• Roscoe ‘Manchester’ Occupation
• Newcastle Occupation
• Whospeaks Forus
• Ourland FreeLand
• Bristol Ukuncut
• Teampalestina Shaf
• Notts-Uncut Part-of UKUncut
• No Quarter Cutthewar
• Freedom Isa StateofMind
• Claimants Fightback
• Ecosocialists Unite
• Comrade George Orwell
• Jason Derrick
• Anarchista Rebellionis
• BigSociety Leeds
• Slade Occupation
• Anti-Cuts Across Wigan
• Firstof Mayband
• Don’t Break Britain United
• Cockneyreject
• SWP Cork
• Westiminster Trades Council
• York Anarchists
• Rock War
• Sheffield Occupation
• Central London SWP
• North London Solidarity
• Southwark Sos
• Rochdale Law Centre
• Goldsmiths Fights Back

See also: The case for an UK republic

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