Chick Fil A Controversy: Mike Huckabee Censored by Facebook for Supporting Anti Gay Company

Impact

It appears that Facebook censorship promotes a double standard that caters primarily to the Gay and Lesbian Community. Earlier this week, Mike Huckabee posted a Facebook page advertising Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day that will be held this Wednesday, August 1. The event was created by Huckabee to counteract the criticism endured by Chick-Fil-A owner Dan Cathy who recently endured much criticism from gay rights activists for statements he made expressing his opposition to same-sex marriage.  

Within 12 hours of creating the page to support the event, everything related to the event had completely disappeared from Facebook. “Well it seems we hit a 12 hour bug. Apparently it hits when large numbers of Christians support something and post about it on Facebook,” said Huckabee. He further elaborated, “Could it be we were attacked because of our beliefs? Could it be that Facebook has a glitch in the system with a very narrow target?" 

Huckabee is not the first person to complain about the double standards Facebook holds when it comes to the  LGBT community. Earlier this summer, Dr. Michael Brown released a new book entitled A Queer Thing Happened to America. A conservative Christian author, Dr. Brown chronicles the history of the modern gay rights movement from its origins in the mid-20th century to today.  Like Huckabee, Dr. Brown created a Facebook page for the purposes of promoting his newly released book. On June 12, Brown posted a message on his wall, “Can you believe it?  Facebook has deleted the page for my book A Queer Thing Happened to America, allegedly as violation of ‘community standards.' As we have warned for years, there will be an attempt to silence all views that differ with homosexual activism.” 

Like Huckabee, Dr. Brown would eventually get the page for his book restored, but not without a fight. In order to get his book restored, he published an article on Townhall.com.In the article he points out, “I received the news yesterday that the Facebook page for my book A Queer Thing Happened to America was deleted for allegedly violating Facebook’s ‘Community Standards.’  But Facebook pages like ‘Hitler Fetus is our Jesus,’ ‘Zombie Jesus,’ and a host of other grossly offensive pages apparently do not violate these standards.” 

In the cases of both Huckabee and Brown, Facebook claimed it was a mistake that the pages were deleted. Both insist however that the actions of Facebook are a sign that the social network is more concerned with catering to left-wing gay activists who complain of hate speech anytime someone dares to disapprove of their sexual lifestyle choice, rather than paying attention to the pages which promote intensely offensive hate speech towards those who practice the Christian faith. If the assertions of Brown and Huckabee are correct, it appears that the quest of the LGBT movement to achieve special rights may well be succeeding, at least as it pertains to Facebook and its selective application of  ‘Community Standards.’