Crackdown on political content on Facebook, TISG among those affected

As of 9am on Thursday, November 7, Facebook has arbitrarily removed all of The Independent Singapore’s posts.

There was no notice, or reason given, other than the fact that our posts have been flagged as ‘Spam’ or ‘Violating Community Standards’.

Furthermore, other political advertisements have also been blocked by Facebook. There have also been restrictions on advertisements by political parties, and many others have faced similar issues with Facebook in the last couple of weeks.

“I suspect it is a change in Facebook’s algorithm that has caused this”, said TISG’s Publisher Kumaran Pillai.

The block is widespread and included photographs of political figures such as Progress Singapore Party’s Dr Tan Cheng Bock and brother of Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Yang.

We suspect this could be a wider block on political material and certainly not an isolated case, but are quite mystified having heard no word whatsoever from Facebook.

Nevertheless, having reached out to Facebook, we at TISG will continue to keep our readers abreast of the developments on this issue.