Facebook and Freedom of Expression

Last Saturday, the administrators of Facebook, the most popular and most used social network, seriously censored me in a completely unexpected way. As I was uploading my last published article for this publication in one of the many groups to which I belong, I received a message warning me that until Tuesday at 10:54 p.m., I was not allowed to be active on any forum, including those I moderate. Not seeing any motive for the censorship, I obviously appealed my case in the space made available for this type of situation, and the only response I got was that the virtual inquisition had prolonged the block to Wednesday morning.

Now, since the censorship is limited just to my activity on forums, in the absence of explanations, I have to conclude that the constant uploading (one for each forum) of the articles published on L’Opinione — given that it’s essentially what I have been doing for years in the groups to which I belong — must have violated in some way, even if I do not see how, the standards of the community, according to a classical definition found at the very top of Facebook regulations. If that were the case, this would be particularly serious and harmful in light of the most basic constitutional right related to freedom of expression. I would not want the measure to aim at preventing me from posting articles with a certain regularity in various groups, as I have been doing for at least five years without having ever incurred censorship. In such an unlucky case, it would be a matter of understanding if the punishment was caused by the number of the comments posted, as they say, or their content. I don’t even want to think about this second particular case.

What I want to remind the good administrators of the popular social network is that for honesty and good sense there should not be any no man’s land, virtual or otherwise. Finally, it would be good to inform those affected by censorship that limits their freedom of expression about the motives behind the measure, motives that obviously cannot surely anticipate the “offense” of writing for L’Opinione.