What better way to honor a royal wedding than to crack down on free speech? Facebook celebrated the William and Kate wedding by nuking 50 groups that were created to protest the ongoing sweetheart deal in the UK for bankers and companies that get away with paying hardly any tax, and the cuts to services for tax-paying normal people that result from these posh tax-cheats.
Facebook is not suited to the purpose of organizing political causes. It may be an easy place to mobilize people, but between it capricious management and the ease of mining it for social graphs, it is an authoritarian secret policeman’s best friend and a censor’s bosom buddy.
FACEBOOK PAGES THAT HAVE BEEN DELETED IN THE LAST 12 HOURS:
Open Birkbeck,
UWE Occupation,
Chesterfield Stopthecuts,
Camberwell AntiCuts,
IVA Womensrevolution,
Tower Hamlets Greens,
No Cuts,
ArtsAgainst Cuts,
London Student Assembly,
Beat’n Streets,
Roscoe ‘Manchester’ Occupation,
Bristol Bookfair,
Newcastle Occupation,
Socialist Unity,
Whospeaks Forus,
Ourland FreeLand,
Bristol Ukuncut,
Teampalestina Shaf,
Notts-Uncut Part-of UKUncut,
No Quarter Cutthewar,
Bootle Labour,
Claimants Fightback,
Ecosocialists Unite,
Comrade George Orwell,
Jason Derrick,
Anarchista Rebellionist,
BigSociety Leeds,
Slade Occupation,
Anti-Cuts Across Wigan,
Firstof Mayband,
Don’t Break Britain United,
Cockneyreject,
SWP Cork,
Westiminster Trades Council,
York Anarchists,
Rock War,
Sheffield Occupation,
Central London SWP,
North London Solidarity,
Southwark Sos,
Save NHS,
Rochdale Law Centre,
Goldsmiths Fights Back
Of course, it wasn’t just Facebook. London’s cops were out in force, ensuring that pensioners were prevented from staging harmless street theatre that mocked the royal family.
Political Facebook Groups Deleted On Royal Wedding Day
(Thanks, Maggie and Ross!)