With five primaries set for Tuesday, Facebook on Monday night began removing pro-Bernie Sanders groups, with an estimated 200,000 members in total. The question raging on the interwebs now is why? Was it due to the work of a pro-Hillary SuperPAC, a few trolls posting pornography, or a Facebook bug?
On April 21, the Correct the Record SuperPAC pledged to spend $1 million to “push back against” users on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram, saying it had already “addressed more than 5,000 people that have personally attacked Hillary Clinton on Twitter.” There’s no direct evidence that Correct the Record was behind any attacks last night that might have led to the removals.
The SuperPAC, created in May 2015, is a spinoff from the American Bridge SuperPAC, which is run by longtime Hillary and Bill Clinton supporter David Brock. Correct the Record is able to coordinate with the Hillary Clinton campaign due to Federal Election Commission loopholes, according to the Sunlight Foundation’s Libby Watson.
“SuperPACs aren’t supposed to coordinate with candidates. The whole reasoning behind (Supreme Court decision) Citizens United rests on (PACs) being independent, but Correct the Record claims it can coordinate,” Watson told The Daily Beast. “It’s not totally clear what their reasoning is, but it seems to be that material posted on the Internet for free—like blogs—doesn’t count as an ‘independent expenditure.'”
Another possibility could have been trolls posting pornography, forbidden under Facebook rules. Members of pro-Bernie groups claim to have seen it on a few groups but since it didn’t happen in all the groups it’s not clear if it is related to the other removals.
Erica Libenow, a Bernie group member, said
“We had what looked like kiddie porn posted in one of our groups today. I reported that one. Seriously made me want to vomit.”
A third possibility is a Facebook bug. Late Monday evening a Reddit user posted a comment from Aiden King, digital and social media manager in the Bernie Sanders campaign, who said there was a bug that had affected many groups, not just pro-Bernie.
The eight groups affected, all reinstated as of early Monday morning, were:
- Bernie Sanders Activists
- Bernie Believers
- Bernie Sanders Is My Hero
- Bernie or Bust
- Bernie Sanders for President
- Bernie Sanders – Ideas Welcome
- Bernie Sanders Revolutionaries
- Bay Area for Bernie
All of this begs the question: Why last night? Today five primaries will be held, in the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. Timing is everything; what we do know is that avenues of free speech were shut down on the eve of crucial primaries. WTF is going on here?
Featured image via Wikipedia/Gary Skidmore.
