On May 7th, 2019 we reported that Facebook had banned the Bounding Into Comics fan page, which had more than 250,000 followers. The owner of the page, John F. Trent, had noted that they didn’t know why the page was taken down or what triggered it, but on the evening of May 8th, 2019, after multiple appeals, the page was restored.
In an article that was published on Bounding Into Comics on May 9th, 2019 (and probably with a lot of elation), Trent explains that the page was restored and they now have their fans back. Trent is still curious about why the page was taken down in the first place, writing…
“The page was restored around 10:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday, May 8th. However, while the page was restored, we still have not received any communication from Facebook indicating why the page was taken down in the first place. […]
“Upon a brief look at the page, no content appears to have actually been removed. In fact, the Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer article is currently the last post on the page.
“We are still reaching out to Facebook to try to get an explanation of why the page was actually removed.”
Trent thanks everyone who offered support in getting the word out about the ban, which is what could have led to Facebook finally looking into the issue.
The general theory is that their page may have been brigaded and mass-reported by ideological opposition. It’s not a far-fetched theory given that we’ve seen them do the same thing to a number of other people in order to get them banned from various social media platforms. For instance, Minnesota lawyer Nick Rekieta has been suspended multiple times on Twitter due to mass-reports from the #KickVic group who are incensed that Rekieta exposes their antics and helped voice actor Vic Mignogna retain a lawyer and garner more than $155,000 via a GoFundMe campaign.
Of course, since Facebook has been unwilling to disclose why the page was taken down in the first place it’s impossible to tell at this point what actually caused the initial ban. When the page was restored they noted that none of the content was missing or removed, so there were no recent content violations committed by Bounding Into Comics.
A lot of people are hoping for some kind of government intervention with the way big tech operates since many of these corporations have more control than the government, have more reach than any government, and can control what you know, what you see, and what you read. They can dictate whether you’re monetized or demonetized, whether you have a platform or de-platformed, and whether you have a voice or not. President Trump says they’re monitoring the situation, while some other politicians are putting forward bills to help protect free speech on major tech platforms that reach tens of millions and hundreds of millions of people, since they’re essentially public forums at this point, and censoring people for their beliefs or opinions looks uncouth to most normal people.
For now, though, the Bounding Into Comics page is back up and running so they can get back to their regular scheduled programming. On the up and up, this is one of the rare times where there was a happy ending for the good guys.
(Thanks for the news tip Ebicentre)
