British conspiracy author David Icke has been permanently banned from Facebook as the social media giant begins its purge of alternative media websites.
Icke’s Facebook page, which had over 700,000 fans, was taken offline on Saturday after the social network complained he had violated “one or more of the Facebook Pages Terms and Conditions”.
“We’re unable to see which of these we’re meant to have violated, as the screenshot here shows we have appealed the decision at 7.54am today and we will keep you updated with the progress,” Mr Icke posted on his website.
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The removal of his Facebook page comes one year after Google and Facebook announced plans to “crack down” on alternative news websites in an effort to prop up failing mainstream news outlets.
Under the guise of protecting the public against “fake news”, the internet giants will soon stop non-verified mainstream news outlets from monetising their content by banning advertisements from appearing on them.
Google will update its Adsense policies to ban pages that “misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher’s content, or the primary purpose“, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The crack down comes amid complaints from mainstream media outlets such as CNN and Buzzfeed that ‘alt media’ websites are “biased” and “misleading”, as they try to deflect attention away from their shameful coverage of the election season.
Facebook recently faced harsh criticism after it admitted to routinely deleting user accounts under orders of both the Israeli and U.S. governments.
It was also forced to comply with new German legislation passed on January 1st, 2018, which forces the social media giant to censor “offensive” websites that embarrass or disrupt Chancellor Merkel’s government.
A new Nazi-style censorship law will force Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media sites to remove content the government arbitrarily deem to be “hate speech.”
A new German law named “The Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz” (NetzDG) came into effect on the 1st Janary, 2018, after passing at the end of June 2017.
