Former biology Professor Brett Weinstein, who found himself chased away from Evergreen State University several years ago for resisting a social justice mob, says he’s been booted from Facebook without an explanation or opportunity to appeal.
In a Twitter post Thursday, Weinstein, who describes himself as a “professor in exile” in his Twitter bio, said that he’d received a notice from Facebook informing him that his account had been disabled. A screenshot, posted with his tweet, said the company’s decision was non-reversible.
“I have been evicted from Facebook. No explanation. No appeal. I have downloaded ‘my information’ and see nothing that explains it. We are governed now in private, by entities that make their own rules and are answerable to no process. Disaster is inevitable. We are living it,” tweeted Weinstein.
Liz Bourgeois, a spokesperson for Facebook, later responded to him saying he “was mistakenly flagged by our system for identifying imposter accounts. We’ve restored it and are sorry for the mistake.” In turn, Weinstein responded: “My first indication of a problem was this message saying Facebook had ‘already reviewed’ the suspension and the decision ‘can’t be reversed.’ My tweet about it clearly got your attention, but I have 400k Twitter followers. What protects regular people from such ‘mistakes’ Liz?”
My first indication of a problem was this message saying Facebook had “already reviewed” the suspension and the decision “can’t be reversed”. My tweet about it clearly got your attention, but I have 400k Twitter followers.
What protects regular people from such “mistakes” Liz? https://t.co/DEvvgOaV4i pic.twitter.com/z43TZJr5j5
— Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein) October 23, 2020
Weinstein, who has supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the past, has been extremely critical of both President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. He recently tried to mount a grassroots effort to recruit a high-profile Democrat and Republican candidate to run for the presidency on a joint “unity” ticket.
One of the candidates his grassroots effort attempted to recruit, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), the vocally anti-establishment congresswoman who has endorsed Biden, responded to Weinstein’s statement that he had been booted from Facebook’s platform by tweeting: “This is insane.”
This is insane.
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) October 23, 2020
Other right-leaning and conservative political commentators had similar reactions to Weinstein’s announcement, including Dave Rubin, host of the Rubin Report, Ben Domenech, publisher of The Federalist, and BlazeTV reporter and podcast host Elijah Schaffer.
They weren’t gonna stop with Alex Jones…
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) October 22, 2020
This is vile.
— Ben Domenech (@bdomenech) October 23, 2020
Then they came for Bret https://t.co/dzzYjz69gr
— ELIJAH SCHAFFER (@ElijahSchaffer) October 23, 2020
Weinstein came to national attention back in 2017, when he refused to go along with the idea that white students and professors at Evergreen State College in Washington state should leave campus for a day for a so-called “Day of Absence.” Amid the subsequent outrage mob, Weinstein was told by the chief of campus police that officers had been told to stand down and could not protect him, as he previously outlined in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal.
He and his wife, biology professor Heather Heying, resigned from the university later that year and received a $500,000 settlement from the university, the college told faculty in an email at the time. The college did not have to admit liability for the incident.
Earlier this summer, Weinstein appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast and blasted the Democratic Party for pushing Biden onto American voters in 2020, saying: “Joe Biden: He’s an influence peddler. He’s not an ‘idea guy.’ He’s the same ‘idea’ as Hillary Clinton in a different morphology. Who cares? This is not an answer to any known question. This is ‘stay the course’ at a moment when we could not afford to stay the course less. Look: How dare the Democratic Party do this to us again at this moment.”