Facebook has finally censored my page.

I knew it would eventually happen. Facebook has shifted the goalposts on what they consider “compliance with community standards” so frequently, nobody knows what “community standards” even are. Did we ever know? I mean, I haven’t personally read the ridiculously verbose description of said standards. Have you?

Whatever. It doesn’t really matter. Zuckerberg (or Big Daddy Sugarmountain, as I like to call him) and his team of Social Media Worriers do what they want. Sure, it’s their platform. They own it. So obviously they reserve the right to admission. And so on, and so forth.

In any event, last night Facebook sends an ominous little notification to my phone. It reads “Your Page Paratus.info has been restricted from accessing some Facebook features.” Apart from that line, they give me no further information. Only after I booted-up my notebook do I get the full picture:

“Stories from your Page are not being shown in News Feed. This could be due to activity from your Page that doesn’t comply with Facebook’s policies.”

Now, I have no idea what the bit in bold above is supposed to mean. I suspect it has something to do with Bryan’s daily COVID-19 updates. Facebook appears to have taken a visceral dislike to people outside MSM talking-heads having an opinion about the “Corona Crisis”. Especially if said opinion runs contrary to the official WHO narrative. Which is hilarious, because Bryan sources all his stats from, among others, the WHO.

Either way, if you subscribe to the Paratus Facebook page, you will no longer see our stories appear in your newsfeed. Not until Sunday 3 May. The amount of views, interactions, and people reached has plummeted through the floor. We are basically not reaching our audience at all. Except for those who actively check-in on the page to see if we posted anything new.

I reckon my hypothesis about COVID-19 is correct. Facebook recently unpublished Mrgunsngear’s page simply because he posted two live videos from an anti-lockdown rally in North Carolina. He didn’t organise the event. And the governor of NC gave permission for the protest to go ahead. Yet facebook unpublished his page with 220 000 followers. Even though he has a clean record and no previous negative strikes pending against him.

We have reached peak Facebook ass-hattery, folks.

The good little social media jackboots are gracious enough to give me the option to “Disagree with Decision”. Sweet. So I did exactly that.

How convenient. Due to COVID-19, Facebook doesn’t have enough Gestap- er, “reviewers” available to process my appeal. What a completely unforeseen and unsurmountable difficulty! We apologise for arbitrarily censoring your page, Mr. Joubert. We doubly apologise for being unable to attend to your complaint. But do keep trying to fight against your own impotence.

So, we are stuck with the following result; without unpublishing the Paratus page, FB has successfully taken us out of the equation for a week.

Fortunately we have back-up options.

I have been asking for some time that readers please subscribe to the Paratus mailing list. So please use the subscribe function on the website to do so. Just pop your email address in the bar, and boom! You will receive updates from what we publish on here via email. You can also join the Paratus subreddit by clicking this link. Please take the time and register a profile. It is free. And Reddit is a very user-friendly forum platform to use. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel. We will be taking the livestream broadcasts off Facebook, and do them on YouTube in the future. You can also follow us on Twitter. If that is your kind of thing. And, lastly, you can check-in on the Paratus Facebook page to see the latest updates. I know it is a conscious effort, but until Sunday that is the only option.

Facebook has telegraphed that they aren’t our friend. They have treated firearm pages and groups disgracefully. And now, if you don’t conform to their preferred narrative, they censor or unpublish you. I therefore plead with you, dear reader, to please consider the alternatives and rather just subscribe to us directly. We own this domain. And Sugarmountain has no power here.

Thank you for reading our content. We look forward to keep on truckin’ for many years to come. With Facebook, or without them

Written by Gideon Joubert

Gideon is the owner and editor of Paratus