Banning militia (be warned Meade.)
Posted: Tue Dec 08, 2020 4:40 pm
Facebook has frozen the accounts of members of a British historical re-enactment society after mistaking them for a US far-right militia group.
Wimborne Militia recreates historic battles from the 17th century including the 1685 Monmouth Rebellion and helps out with other local events - including recently turning on a town's Christmas lights.
But five of its 60 members have had their Facebook profiles disabled, leaving them unable to post photos or comments.
The group, based in Dorset, fears it is because the social media giant has mis-identified its page as being part of a right-wing movement in the US.
The group's founder, Chris Brown, 64, also runs the Wimborne Neighbourhood Watch Facebook page - another of the frozen pages.
He said: 'The first we knew something was wrong was last week when none of us could access our Facebook accounts.'
Mr Brown added: 'There was a message that appeared that stated "your account has been disabled due to contraventions of community standards. This decision is irreversible."
'We had no idea what had gone on. We thought somebody had hacked our accounts at first.
'We couldn't get hold of anybody at Facebook. I even emailed Nick Clegg, who is the director of global communications at Facebook, but I'm still waiting for a reply.
'We suspected it was down to this business in the US where you have militia groups that are armed to the teeth and an algorithm is wiping off anybody who has the word militia on their page.
'It looks like Facebook made a blanket decision without checking us out. If they did it would have been fairly obvious that were aren't a dangerous, political group.
'We are an English Civil War re-enactment group with 17th century weapons which we had shotgun licences for. We operate under strict health and safety rules and everything is done by the book.'
The group relies on social media to keep the public informed of its activities - especially during the coronavirus pandemic.
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