Instagram and Facebook block quote from Thomas Paine for “false information”

[Valin]

Reclaim The Net

Algorithmic censorship.

Didi Rankovic

Dec. 28 2021

What if social media existed in the Dark Ages? Users posting a quote by an Enlightenment era figure, and getting censored for it, might have just gotten some idea of what that would be like.

Facebook’s “dumb algorithms” are most likely (or at least, hopefully) behind the decision to “fact check” and censor none other than a quote by Thomas Paine, an 18th century Anglo-American figure whose work was instrumental in inspiring the declaration of independence of the United States.

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Whatever the case, multiple Facebook and Instagram users were saying on Twitter on Monday and Tuesday that their posts were either removed or that they had their accounts temporarily blocked for uploading a picture of Paine and his quote, reading, “He who dares not offend cannot be honest,” that comes from Paine’s writings in the Pennsylvania Journal, 24 April, 1776. 

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