Christophobic Facebook

Respectful post on homosexual marriage by Australian clegyman immediately deleted.  Restored only after intervention by Australian politicians

Federal Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has called on Facebook to explain why it deleted a Sydney academic’s post about same-sex marriage and reinstated it only after being quizzed by free-speech advocate Tim Wilson.

The post by John Dickson, an ordained Anglican minister and founder of the Centre for Public Christianity, was removed on ­Saturday because it did not adhere to Facebook’s “community standards”.

The 500-word opinion piece, which called for a more respect­ful debate on the issue of gay marriage, had been reinstated on Sunday night, with Facebook telling Mr Dickson one of its employees had “accidentally” deleted it.

Mr Hastie said yesterday he had told Mr Wilson, the former human rights commissioner and a Liberal candidate at the next federal election, about Facebook’s censorship when he heard about it on Sunday. Mr Wilson later spoke to someone he knew in Face­book’s government affairs team and the post was reinstated.

Mr Hastie, the MP for the seat of Canning in Western Australia, said Facebook should explain its actions.  “If they have assumed a new morality, just be clear about it,” he said. “I find it troubling that Facebook would censor a respected public figure like John Dickson who was advocating in a very reasonable and winsome manner.  “If that sort of engagement is going to be censored, I would be worried about the future of debate in this country.”

A Facebook spokesman declined to say why the post was removed or whether it had been the subject of complaints.  “This comment was removed in error,” he said. “We promptly restored the comment once we realised this, and we’re sorry for the inconvenience caused.”

SOURCE

The restored FB post is here