Evolutionary biologist and famed member of the intellectual dark web, Bret Weinstein, was banned from Facebook on October the 22nd. Facebook alleged he violated Facebook standards and indicated that the decision was manually reviewed and irreversible.
Weinstein is famous for being a fierce defender of free speech; an opinion that has made him a subject of controversy and attack from the far left.
I have been evicted from Facebook. No explanation. No appeal. I have downloaded "my information" and see nothing that explains it.
— Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein) October 22, 2020
We are governed now in private, by entities that make their own rules and are answerable to no process. Disaster is inevitable. We are living it. pic.twitter.com/JBTFH2devl
Democratic candidate and representative Tulsi Gabbard joined along and was quick to call the suspension "insane".
This is insane.
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 23, 2020
Representative Gabbard has previously voiced her concerns on social media censorship in the past. Mid last year, Gabbard sued Google over First Amendment claims regarding the suspension of her advertising account. A judge however later dismissed her lawsuit and claimed that First Admendment rights do not apply to private companies such as Google.
This was not the first time Weinstein has faced social media suspensions. Twitter suspended the account for Weinstein's grassroots political movement, @ArticlesOfUnity, in late August of 2020. The account remains banned to this day with no explanation.
Updates:
On October 22nd, Facebook representative Liz Bourgeois told Weinstein that his account was flagged by their systems and it has been restored.
Your account was mistakenly flagged by our system for identifying impostor accounts. We've restored it and are sorry for the mistake.
— Liz Bourgeois (@Liz_Shepherd) October 23, 2020
Weinstein then voiced his concern for those banned from Facebook without a large following and how difficult it would be for them to get their accounts back.
My first indication of a problem was this message saying Facebook had "already reviewed" the suspension and the decision "can't be reversed". My tweet about it clearly got your attention, but I have 400k Twitter followers.
— Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein) October 23, 2020
What protects regular people from such "mistakes" Liz? https://t.co/DEvvgOaV4i pic.twitter.com/z43TZJr5j5