{"id":122719,"date":"2018-11-26T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=122719"},"modified":"2018-11-23T14:31:02","modified_gmt":"2018-11-23T14:31:02","slug":"as-facebook-bans-alternative-media-to-promote-online-safety-they-allowed-a-child-to-be-sold-in-a-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/11\/as-facebook-bans-alternative-media-to-promote-online-safety-they-allowed-a-child-to-be-sold-in-a-post\/","title":{"rendered":"As Facebook Bans Alternative Media to \u2018Promote Online Safety,\u2019 They Allowed a Child to Be Sold in a Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Facebook was actively deleting countless pages for promoting peace and freedom, they allowed an auction to be held in which a child was for sale\u2014for weeks. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

21 Nov 2018 – <\/em>Last month, Facebook and Twitter \u2014 without warning or justification \u2014 deleted the pages of Free Thought Project and Police the Police which had over 5 million followers. During this purge, they also removed hundreds of other pages including massive police accountability groups, antiwar activists, alternative media, and libertarian news outlets. Facebook claimed to remove these pages in the name of fighting disinformation online and creating a safer user experience. Illustrating just how big of ostentatious sham this was, this month, a child was openly sold on this same platform that claims to promote online safety.<\/p>\n

Last month, an auction was held on Facebook in which a child bride was put up for sale in a public post. People openly bid on Facebook for a 16-year-old girl\u2019s hand in marriage.<\/p>\n

Facebook claims they removed the post, but this wasn\u2019t until the auction had ended and the girl had been sold.<\/p>\n

As FOX 59 reports,<\/a> according to\u00a0children\u2019s rights organization\u00a0Plan International,<\/a>\u00a0the girl was bid on by five men, some of whom were reportedly high-ranking South Sudanese government officials.<\/p>\n

George Otim, Plan International\u2019s country director in South Sudan, where the auction took place,\u00a0 said:<\/p>\n

\u201cThat a girl could be sold for marriage on the world\u2019s biggest social networking site in this day and age is beyond belief.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Facebook doles out bans for photos of ET<\/a>, deletes pages with millions of followers for promoting peace<\/a>, and censors alternative media, the post selling a human child to a life of slavery was allowed to remain up for 15 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny form of human trafficking \u2014 whether posts, pages, ads or groups is not allowed on Facebook. We removed the post and permanently disabled the account belonging to the person who posted this to Facebook,\u201d a company spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always improving the methods we use to identify content that breaks our policies, including doubling our safety and security team to more than 30,000 and investing in technology,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n

Facebook users have been banned within second and posts removed immediately for posting peaceful antiwar content\u2014users have been banned and posts removed for quoting the declaration of independence\u2014yet somehow, a post selling a child to high ranking government officials for 500 cows, three cars and $10,000 was allowed to stay up for 15 days. Let that sink in.<\/p>\n

\u201cViolations against women in South Sudan are a continuing issue, but for Facebook to allow their platform to enhance these violations is a problem,\u201d said Judy Gitau, Equality Now\u2019s regional coordinator for Africa.<\/p>\n

Indeed, selling children on Facebook is a massive problem for the social media company and had any other smaller social media company allowed such behavior, they would have been banned or purged immediately, just like Gab was after the tragic shooting<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

But this is Facebook and they can get away with it. Had the company actually been trying to promote a safer space on their platform like they claim, instead of censoring alternative media, perhaps they would\u2019ve spotted the post selling a child faster. Instead, however, they were too busy deleting the pages of those who seek to hold child traffickers and corrupt government accountable. A travesty indeed.<\/p>\n

In May, Facebook announced that it partnered with the arm of the Atlantic Council, known as the\u00a0Digital Forensic Research Lab. They claim this partnership was made to help the social media behemoth with \u201creal-time insights and updates on emerging threats and disinformation campaigns from around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certainly a child being sold in a post is a \u201cthreat,\u201d right? Not to Facebook and the Atlantic Council\u2014who appear more concerned with pages promoting peace and exposing government corruption. Highlighting this notion is the fact that during the same time period that this girl was auctioned off, Facebook\u2019s censorship arm repeatedly deleted the page \u201cLiberty Memes\u201d dozens of times.<\/p>\n

When Liberty Memes was banned, a 2.0 popped up immediately and began growing. Not 24 hours later however, it was gone too. Such was the case with 3.0 and 4.0. Facebook was actively seeking out content creators who promoted peace and was deleting them faster than they could start new pages\u2014yet a post selling a child remained for over two weeks.<\/p>\n

The next time you see people calling for the banning of websites because one of their users made an offensive post, or violated some vague terms of service, remind them that Facebook allowed a post selling a child to stay up for 15 days while actively suppressing information that promotes peace and freedom for all.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the<\/em> Free Thought Project.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 thefreethoughtproject.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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