Facebook reportedly censored posts that appeared to counter the Leftist narrative that Kyle Rittenhouse was guilty despite video evidence that he acted in self-defense.
The New York Post’s editorial board wrote on Thursday that “barely a week” after Rittenhouse shot three people during Black Lives Matter riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Facebook announced that it had “designated the shooting in Kenosha a mass murder and are removing posts in support of the shooter.”
“Just for starters: Killing two people is mass murder now? Sure looks like the social-media giant’s staff just reached for the nearest excuse to suppress posts that conflicted with their personal prejudices — and no higher-up bothered to correct the call,” the Post wrote. “The blackout went far and wide: Facebook actively policed its users for pro-Kyle Rittenhouse posts and removed the content. It even targeted posts from legal scholars arguing the merits of his self-defense case.”
Dan Gainor, vice president of the Media Research Center, told the Post earlier in the week that even Rittenhouse stories that were allowed on the social media platform were suppressed.
“One of the big things that they did was manipulate the search engine so you couldn’t even find any references to Kyle Rittenhouse,” Gainor told the outlet. “They’re out of touch with normal people.”
As the Post’s editorial board noted, Facebook “actively policed its users for pro-Rittenhouse posts.” For example, as Wisconsin Right Now reported, Facebook allegedly labeled Rittenhouse a “dangerous person or organization” and banned people who provided legal analysis of his case.
An article from WRN that analyzed Wisconsin law was deemed to have violated Facebook’s “standards on dangerous individuals and organizations. We don’t allow symbols, praise or support of dangerous individuals or organizations on Facebook. We define dangerous as things like: terrorist activity, organized hate or violence, mass or serial murder, human trafficking, criminal or harmful activity.”
The Post reported late last month that one Facebook employee attempted to call out the company’s censorship, saying it was “drunk on power.” Most employees, however, lean decidedly left, and favored the censorship.
“The rioting has been going on for over three months and it’s only an issue now because people inside the company saw violence they didn’t like,” the Facebook employee said in internal documents obtained by the Post. “Employees are drunk on the absolute power of being in control of civics in America, without ever having to visit a voting booth (if voting is even an option).”
Twitter also reportedly attempted to censor information that didn’t support the Left’s preferred narrative surrounding Rittenhouse. GoFundMe initially refused to allow fundraisers for Rittenhouse’s defense, but eventually reversed the decision after he was acquitted.
The New York Times also appears to have censored an article that described the reality of the Kenosha riots until after President Joe Biden was elected, according to a former reporter.
“Whatever the reason for holding the piece, covering the suffering after the riots was not a priority. The reality that brought Kyle Rittenhouse into the streets was one we reporters were meant to ignore. The old man who tried to put out a blaze at a Kenosha store had his jaw broken,” wrote the author of the article, Nellie Bowles.
“If you lived in those neighborhoods on fire, you were not supposed to get an extinguisher. The proper response — the only acceptable response — was to see the brick and mortar torn down, to watch the fires burn and to say: thank you,” she concluded.