Just last week, Facebook launched an initiative to uplift climate science. It was wildly misguided, yes, but the company was trying to show it’s down for the cause or something. Now, the company is proving just how devoted to climate activism it is by, um, booting environmental justice organizers from the platform. Tight!
Hundreds of Indigenous, environmental, and social justice groups and members had their accounts blocked this past weekend, leaving them unable to post or send messages. Greenpeace USA, Climate Hawks Vote, Stand.earth, Wet’suwet’en Access Point on Gidimt’en Territory, and Rainforest Action Network were among the groups that saw their accounts affected.
The accounts blocked were involved in planning a communications blockade event against KKR & Co., the U.S. investment firm that’s majority funder of the destructive Coastal Link natural gas pipeline, which is set to cut through land controlled by Indigenous people without consent. In other words, these groups were blocked while fighting climate injustice.
“Facebook is actively suppressing those who oppose fascism and the colonial capitalists,” activist Delee Nikal, a Wet’suwet’en band member of the Gitdimt’en clan, said in a statement emailed to Earther.
In a statement, Facebook said these suspensions were all just a random accident.
“Our systems mistakenly removed these accounts and content,” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said.
He said all limits imposed had been lifted, but according to Greenpeace USA, though many accounts have now been restored, some are still blocked.
Source: Facebook Conducts ‘Mass Censorship’ of Climate Activists
Robin Edgar
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