Australia: Facebook deletes posts quoting former Prime Minister John Howard

FACEBOOK is being accused of “censoring” John Howard after the social network deleted a post from an account quoting the former Prime Minister.

The Australian Family Association posted a Daily Telegraph story to its Facebook page on August 8 and provided no comment other than quotes from Mr Howard in which he condemned the Australian Defence Force’s push to ban words such as “him” and “her”.

AFA Director Damian Wyld told Miranda Live that they “boosted” the post with Facebook’s approval, but an hour later it had disappeared from the site.

“It just spontaneously vanished,” Mr Wyld said.

“Facebook suggesting it’s impartial is something that needs to be revised and re-visited”.

“There’s also the question of how their algorithms work, whether they have the ability to sit down and look at every single post that a user puts up.”

Australian Family Association Director Damian Wyld.
Mr Wyld told Miranda Live host Miranda Devine he believes the social media network monitors “key phrases and trigger words” in order to disable posts.

He said the AFA hasn’t been able to reach Facebook and find out why the post was red-flagged. “We sent them a please explain and nearly a week later we’ve heard nothing from them.”

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