March 30, 2016: LGBT groups rejected from Facebook

Facebook rejects ads from a Christian LGBT organization. The Huffington Post’s Kittredge Cherry writes: “Queer Christianity seems to scare the censors at Facebook.”

An Italian LGBT campaign against racism found their campaign banned from Facebook for containing pornographic imagery. The image in question is of a man with a bedsheet covering his genitals.

A priori censorship? In an article in Barron’s, William Pesek discusses how Mark Zuckerburg’s recent trip to China should increase fears about censorship on the platform: “Facebook with Chinese characteristics would be so detrimental to the mainland’s development. It would give Xi a public relations coup as it creates the illusion of a more transparent and global nation. But really, it would just be another tool for Xi to tighten the censorship screws.”

Facebook unbanned the artist behind the ‘Trump Baby Dick’ portraits, but she has lost the right to post images. An article published by Motherboard stated that the artist “has been facing a bizarre and confusing battle with Facebook over the status of her account and a copyright claim”

Rahul Garg, a columnist for India’s Citizen, writes that in the Indian context, “Facebook’s “reporting” button ends up being used more as a censorship mechanism than a tool to regulate abusive or hateful content.”