-By Warner Todd Huston
Todd Starnes of Fox News reports that Facebook blocked his postings because he posted support for the National Rifle Association (NRA), Paula Deen, Chick-Fil-A, and Jesus on his page.
The blocked comment was a snarky commentary on several news stories. It ended up eliciting hundreds of replies and likes before Facebook deleted it leaving a warning message.
In place of Starnes’ page, Facebook posted a message that read, “We removed something you Posted, We removed this from Facebook because it violates our community standards.
“I’m about as politically incorrect as you can get,” read Starnes’ Facebook entry before it was deleted. “I’m wearing an NRA ball cap, eating a Chick-fil-A sandwich, reading a Paula Deen cookbook and sipping a 20-ounce sweet tea while sitting in my Cracker Barrel rocking chair with the Gather Vocal Band singing ‘Jesus Saves’ on the stereo and a Gideon’s Bible in my pocket. Yessir, I’m politically incorrect and happy as a june bug.”
Facebook has since admitted that it was a “mistake” for blocking Starnes’ Facebook page and has re-instated his access and posting privileges.
Facebook sent Starnes a message explaining its actions.
“As our team processes hundreds of thousands of reports each week, we occasionally make a mistake. In this case, we mistakenly removed content from the Todd Starnes Page, and worked to rectify the mistake as soon as we were notified. We apologize for the inconvenience caused due to the removal of this content, and we have already taken steps to prevent this from happening in the future. Additionally, we have removed any blocks on associated accounts.”
Starnes is a well-known Fox News radio commentator and has a popular Facebook page, but was for a time blocked from access to it.
When the incident occurred, Starnes took to Twitter to voice his frustration. “I’m really perplexed,” Starnes said. “Does Facebook have a bigger problem with Jesus or plump juicy chicken breasts?”
Facebook either has a problem with the NRA, Jesus, Chick-fil-A or Paula Deen http://t.co/L4FkBfgfhd #banned
— toddstarnes (@toddstarnes) June 29, 2013
Despite its vaunted “community standards” As a Fox News report notes, Facebook has such active, unmolested pages as:
“F*** Conservatives”
“F*** Mitt Romney”
“Tea Party Can Kiss My A**”
“Rush Limbaugh is an Abject A******”
Starnes has been on the receiving end of malicious liberal Internet complainers before. Last year his book, Dispatches From Bitter America – Culture War Stores From a Gun-Toting, Chicken-Eating, Son-of-a-Baptist, was briefly suspended for sale on Amazon.com when liberals flooded that on-line book seller with complaints. Amazon never did respond to questions on the incident but did re-instate sales of the book.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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