Valletta Protest Organisers Blocked From Posting On Facebook
Facebook has censored two of the main people involved in the organisation of recent protests demanding justice for assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia.
“My Facebook profile and page are being blocked just a we are mobilising for justice for Daphne Caruana Galizia,” sociologist and PN councillor Michael Briguglio, who forms part of the Civil Society Network, said on Twitter. “Highly suspicious.”
His Facebook ban appears to have been removed a few hours later.
Karl Camilleri, formerly secretary-general of the Partit Demokratiku, also reported he had been blocked from posting on Facebook. However, he managed to find a loophole by linking his Facebook account with Twitter.
The censoring comes ahead of tonight’s protest, which will see a group of people camp at Castille Square to pressure Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to sack the police commissioner and the Attorney General. The protestors aim to keep camping outside the Prime Minister’s office throughout the entire weekend, until 11pm on Sunday.
Briguglio warned Facebook had banned several people from sharing tonight’s event because it has been mass-reported as spam.
The social network’s community standards bar people from posting spam, which is defined as “misleading or inaccurate information to artificially collect likes, followers or shares”. However, it is as yet unclear whether this is the standard Facebook deems the protest organisers to have breached.
The case is reminiscent of when Daphne Caruana Galizia’s eldest son Matthew, also a journalist, was temporarily locked out of his Facebook account last May over posts alleging corruption by the Labour government.
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