Facebook Locks Account of Conservative Children’s Book Publisher, Then Reverses Course

Facebook locked the ads account of a conservative children’s book publisher, alleging it didn’t comply with Facebook’s stated advertising policies.

The publisher, Heroes of Liberty, has published several books, including ones about Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, former President Ronald Reagan and Thomas Sowell.

The books published by Heroes of Liberty are written for children ages 7-12, and are intended to be “entertaining, engaging, story-driven, visually stunning” and “full of love and admiration to the American values which made this country great.”

Heroes of Liberty releases a new book each month on a different “hero,” and offers a month-by-month, annual, or two-year subscription service for parents.

On December 23, Facebook said that that Heroes of Liberty’s ads account violated the company’s policy against providing “Low Quality or Disruptive Content.”

Photo Credit: Fox Business

Heroes of Liberty promptly appealed Facebook’s decision but was again denied access.

“After a final review of this ad account, we confirmed it didn’t comply with our Advertising Policies or other standards,” Facebook told Heroes of Liberty. “You can no longer advertise with this ad account and its ads and assets will remain disabled. This is our final decision.”

However, apparently that wasn’t Facebook’s “final decision.”

The tech giant has now restored Heroes of Liberty’s page, calling the censorship a mistake.

Drew Pusateri, a spokesperson for the company, told Fox Business, “I wanted to let you know that the ads account was disabled in error and has been restored.”

Heroes of Liberty editor and board member Bethany Mandel told Fox Business that Facebook’s original decision to ban the company was “pure madness.”

“We are not in politics, we are in the business of creating beautiful stories about great people that will entertain children and give them life lessons. To cancel children’s books because they celebrate American values that 90% of Americans believe in isn’t even anti-conservative bias, it’s anti-American.”

It’s good that Facebook has realized their “mistake” – notably, after the potential censorship gained substantial media coverage.

However, the rhetorical question running through my mind is, why do these so-called mistakes only happen to conservative and right-of-center companies and personalities? Why do these “errors” by big technology companies never happen to result in liberals being “accidentally” banned?

The answer is simple: We’ve known for years now that big tech is biased against conservatives.

Two years ago, the Media Research Center discovered records from OpenSecrets.org that show that Facebook employees donate far more to Democrats than Republicans.

In 2020, Facebook employees contributed $2,409,464 to Democrats, or 92% of their total political donations, while giving just $218,576, or just 8%, to Republicans.

We’ll probably never know for certain whether Facebook’s censorship of Heroes of Liberty was an honest mistake, or whether it’s just the next instance of big tech employees silencing right-of-center voices they disagree with.

But considering Facebook’s political donations, I think the latter is a safe bet.

Photo from Shutterstock.