A Homeschooling Christian Mom Wasn’t Suspended from Facebook for Quoting the Bible February 22, 2017

A Homeschooling Christian Mom Wasn’t Suspended from Facebook for Quoting the Bible

If you listen to “Ohio homeschooling mother of 10” Elizabeth Johnston, all she did to get her “Activist Mommy” Facebook page temporarily banned was post some Bible verses that said how homosexuality was “detestable” and an “abomination.” Her post was removed again when, after being unsuspended, she republished the same comment.

So of course she thinks she’s being punished for being a conservative Christian.

16426053_1181648901953257_4999255778529586164_n

“Someone had commented underneath one of my videos and were commenting under the thread and said something about how Old Testament law prohibits the eating of pork — one of the homosexuals’ favorite arguments to make. I responded with just scriptural commentary and that is considered ‘hate speech’ by Facebook,” Johnston explained. “It was just very intellectual and it was just a commentary on what the Bible says. There was no name calling or anything like that.”

I guess we have very different definitions of what it means to be “intellectual”… and what it means to call other people names. There’s hardly a difference between denigrating other people and doing the same thing but adding “Leviticus 18:22” after it.

In fact, Johnston fully admits (later on) that Facebook’s algorithm may have kicked in — and that some random staffer didn’t try to stifle her speech because of her beliefs.

The Ohio mother contended that with the way the Facebook algorithm is set up is that all that is needed for her account to be frozen is for liberal trolls and LGBT activists to report her account.

“The fact of it is that the people who have more influence and a following as conservative Christians and have a larger voice in the culture are at greater risk for this type of thing happening,” she stated. “We can be innocent as a baby but if a homosexual goes onto a website and tells everybody to report ‘The Activist Mommy,’ then I end up getting banned.”

So was it Facebook going after her for being a Christian… or people reporting her comments and the site’s algorithm kicking in? She can’t seem to make up her mind. But screw it — let’s blame a liberal! Let’s set aside the notion that if anyone talked about Christians the way Johnston talks about LGBT people, she’s be the first one whining about it…

The fact is that popular pages of any kind are subject to having posts removed if some people find it offensive. I run a page with 473,000 likes (cheap plug). I have repeatedly received a similar message from Facebook, removing cartoons or posts, because some readers (I don’t know how many) reported them for being too offensive. A number of atheist pages have been temporarily suspended altogether for the same reasons.

So this isn’t some anti-Christian conspiracy.

Meanwhile, other anti-gay Christian bigots like Franklin Graham and Joshua Feuerstein — who have Facebook pages with more likes than Johnston — seem to be doing just fine.

So this isn’t some anti-Christian conspiracy.

In fact, if Facebook was trying to silence conservative voices, the company’s doing a really awful job of it, because those voices are all over the site.

Not that Johnston will admit what happened to her is just something that affects pretty much everyone with a sizable following on Facebook who posts about controversial issues. She’s too busy bragging about her Facebook martyrdom to inject any critical thinking into the matter, repeatedly calling what happened to her “censorship,” as if it’s the government, not an automated computer algorithm on a private website, stopping her from spewing her hate.

Last I checked, her Facebook page is up and running. So much for the so-called censorship. Facebook didn’t suspend her, even if the site automatically responded to people complaining about a couple of her posts. There’s no evidence of anti-conservative bias at play here.

You’d think a self-proclaimed intellectual would know that.

(Thanks to April for the link)

"The way republican politics are going these days, that means the winner is worse than ..."

It’s Moving Day for the Friendly ..."
"It would have been more convincing if he used then rather than than."

It’s Moving Day for the Friendly ..."

Browse Our Archives

What Are Your Thoughts?leave a comment
error: Content is protected !!