Recently Facebook is arbitrarily banning posts that mention certain persons or organization's names or post their photos. It cites Community Standards which prohibit glorifying dangerous/terrorist organizations or individuals.

Glorifying? Even if we post something against the said person/organization, we get restriction or get a permanent ban. Is opposing these so called dangerous persons/organizations "glorifying" them? In this way, it is FB that is helping these persons/organizations.

And from where does facebook gets list of these people/organizations?  Is FB behaving like a govt above govt and running its own lists? Why these lists are not made public?

Pakistani users are a special target. A big event is happening in the region, ie, takeover of Afghanistan by Taliban. Taliban are not in the United State's list of terrorist organizations, yet FB bans any news/comment about them whether it is in their support or opposition or  just a news piece.

This makes it very difficult for #press/#journalists to cover such events.

Oversight board is useless as it accepts very little number of petitions. A banned account cant challenge the ban in OSB.

Similarly general posts about other topics are actively being silenced.

FB should review its policy and provide better ways to let journalists do their duty.

Let us speak up our mind and say what we want to say unless we are inciting to violence. FB shouldn't suppress #FreeSpeech and it shouldn't behave like authoritarians dictators.

Adnan Khan
Editor
https://www.humsub.com.pk