That’s something we all hear and say around Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day, but why do we stop hearing the phrase on election day and the days that lead up to it?
Without grassroots and community organizations to mobilize people around causes and candidates, our freedom, the very freedom earned by blood, would be lost at the ballot box.
That is why it is so important for organizations like the one I co-founded, Long Island Loud Majority (LILM), to be able to function without harassment. Grassroots organizations like mine bring people together to exercise our rights as Americans. Unfortunately, the platforms we utilize are not living up to the expectations they set. Just this past Tuesday, June 8th, our Facebook group was again shutdown. This had also happened previously just weeks before this past November election.
We are given no reason other than a blanket violation of “community guidelines.” This empty phrase doesn’t help us figure out how we violated the guidelines. It doesn’t allow us to conform to Facebook guidelines. It is vague and, dare I say, punitive. If there is something that specifically violates Facebook’s guidelines, shouldn’t we be informed so that this it may never happen again?
But maybe we can’t know the violation because we’re simply guilty of promoting events that Facebook’s left-wing censors find personally objectionable. And that is discrimination, plain and simple.
This follows a disturbing pattern of conservative opinions (or middle of the road if you were awake fifteen years ago) facing a double standard on social media platforms. Calls to violence are reposted by Antifa affiliated organizations and foreign dictators enjoy impunity for their statements under the guise of diplomacy. But conservatives are punished for standing by the principles of the founders.
The timing of when Facebook decides we have violated their community standards is also something to behold. Recently, LILM helped to flip three Smithtown Central School District seats, and we plan to help concerned parents next year. The past two times our accounts been suspended were during hotbeds of political activity. Whether this is coincidence or something more nefarious is left to your imagination, but it is something worth discussing.
If only there were a place to discuss it.
[Editors note: author is a co-founder of Long Island Loud Majority.]
