'Another Glaring Example of Cancel Culture': Facebook Blocks Conservative Children's Book Publisher
Facebook has permanently disabled the ads of a new conservative children's book publisher offering the biographies of President Ronald Reagan, economist Thomas Sowell, and Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
The social media giant claimed that Heroes of Liberty violated its rules against "Low Quality or Disruptive Content," according to Fox Business.
"The question is: is a children's biography of Ronald Reagan no longer permissible on Facebook? We don't know. But apparently promoting one may well kill a business," Heroes of Liberty editor and board member Bethany Mandel told the outlet on Sunday.
"We began investing in Facebook four months before we launched our first book," she added. "We invested most of our marketing budget on the platform, and now our budget (the money we've already spent), as well as our assets and data are gone. Marketing-wise we are back in square one, financially it's even more challenging."
Facebook locked the ads on the publisher's account on Dec. 23. After Heroes of Liberty appealed, Facebook permanently disabled the account, according to Fox Business.
In a message to the publisher, Facebook wrote: "This ad account, its ads and some of its advertising assets are disabled because it didn't comply with our policy on Low Quality or Disruptive Content."
After the publisher appealed the platform's decision, Facebook replied, "After a final review of this ad account, we confirmed it didn't comply with our Advertising Policies or other standards."
"You can no longer advertise with this ad account and its ads and assets will remain disabled. This is our final decision," the company said.
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz blasted Facebook, tweeting: "When conservatives start independent publishing outlets and platforms, #BigTech companies like Facebook now work to destroy them. This latest example is particularly galling."
When conservatives start independent publishing outlets and platforms, #BigTech companies like Facebook now work to destroy them. This latest example is particularly galling. https://t.co/EkT41avNII
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 3, 2022
Former Wisconsin Republican governor and current Young America's Foundation President Scott Walker called Facebook's move, "Another glaring example of cancel culture."
He also tweeted, "The left does not want to compete in a battle of ideas, so they try to shut us out."
"We are not in politics; we are in the business of creating beautiful stories about great people that will entertain children and give them life lessons," Mandel told Fox. "To cancel children's books because they celebrate American values that 90% of Americans believe in isn't even anti-conservative bias, it's anti-American. Pure madness."
"There was a small but noisy group of responders to our ads who didn't like the fact we published books about Ronald Reagan, Thomas Sowell, and Amy Coney Barrett; people we called Heroes of Liberty," she said. "They made nasty comments, especially about Reagan, and about us for publishing these books and even shared their desire to burn them."
"It's very likely those same people reported to Facebook that our content is disturbing, because it doesn't sit well with their radical worldview," the editor noted. "These are the same people who riot and take down statues of our founding fathers in the real world, and they want to strip us of our ability to honor our Heroes in the digital sphere and in children's books. … Our problem is that it seems that Facebook went with the mob judgment call and not with common sense."
"We learned our lesson, and won't risk building our business relying on the whims of Big Tech again…We are very happy with our initial decision to create a subscription model that will allow us to create a more meaningful one-on-one connection with families that can't be disrupted by a censor," she concluded.
More New Cases of Cancel Culture
Meanwhile, Twitter has now banned U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Dr. Robert Malone, a founding researcher of mRNA vaccine technology. That prompted podcast host Joe Rogan to announce on Sunday he was moving to the social media platform GETTR, according to The Washington Examiner.
Twitter banned Greene's personal account for spreading alleged "misinformation" about COVID-19.
The Examiner reports the social media platform banned Dr. Malone last week over an unknown post. Malone speculated during an appearance on Rogan's show it was because his views were deemed to have prompted "vaccine hesitancy."
"Dr. Robert Malone is the inventor of the nine original mRNA vaccine patents, which were originally filed in 1989 (including both the idea of mRNA vaccines and the original proof of principle experiments) and RNA transfection. Dr. Malone, has close to 100 peer-reviewed publications which have been cited over 12,000 times," Rogan wrote in an Instagram post designed as an introduction to Malone's appearance.
"Since January 2020, Dr. Malone has been leading a large team focused on clinical research design, drug development, computer modeling, and mechanisms of action of repurposed drugs for the treatment of COVID-19. Dr. Malone is the Medical Director of The Unity Project, a group of 300 organizations across the US standing against mandated COVID vaccines for children. He is also the President of the Global COVID Summit, an organization of over 16,000 doctors and scientists committed to speaking truth to power about COVID pandemic research and treatment," Rogan concluded.
Members of former President Donald Trump's team launched "GETTR," on July 4 and they call it an alternative to Big Tech sites. Former Trump senior adviser Jason Miller, who is leading the platform, said the name GETTR was inspired by the idea of "Getting Together."
And Trump is launching his own social media site to promote free speech called Truth Social.
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