A Facebook page against the controversial Mandatory ISP Censorship proposal has been blocked by Facebook. The Page admin, Gour Lentell discovered on Sunday 5 September that his publishing rights to Bet we can find 1 million Australians who say NO to the Internet filter had blocked due to an unverified violation to Pages Terms of Use. The page has over 29,000 members and has a good level of debate and discussion on the issue of the filter from many Open Internet supporters.
Lentell has said that he does not know what may have caused the page to become blocked. “For the life of me I cannot see how the page violates the terms of use”, he said. “As the admin of the page, any post I make automatically appears in the personal news feeds of all page fans, a responsibility I have attempted to take seriously.”
He could only speculate that people opposed to the page such as filter supporters may have reported the page as in appropriate. “Supporters of the proposed legislation, might have ‘reported’ the page which might then make Facebook automatically ‘block’ the page.”
After 8 days his publishing rights remain blocked, however fans can continue to publish to the page’s wall. However, these posts do not appear in the fan’s news feeds, so in effect, the page has been silenced until the issue is resolved.
While it is wise that Facebook has a system to block content in violation of their Terms of Use, it is unacceptable for these blocks to occur without notification or explanation of the suspected offence, and with no timely response to appeal requests.
EFA will continue to monitor the situation, and will report on the outcome. Members of the page can contact Gour Lentell by sending a message via his Facebook account.
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