WASHINGTON, D.C., April 11, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said a conservative video blogging duo should not have been flagged during his second day of Congressional testimony.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-TX, relayed a question he said he received from dozens of constituents: “why is Facebook censoring conservative bloggers such as Diamond and Silk? Facebook called them ‘unsafe to the community.’ That is ludicrous. They hold conservative views. That isn’t unsafe.”
Zuckerberg answered that “in that specific case our team made an enforcement error.” He added that “we have already gotten in touch with them to reverse it.”
Diamond and Silk, whose real names are Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, are a pair of South Carolina sisters who have been video blogging since 2014 and rose to prominence during the 2016 election as supporters of President Donald Trump.
READ: Facebook declares black, pro-Trump social media stars ‘unsafe for community’
Since September, they say they have been asking Facebook why their million-plus followers have stopped receiving notifications of new content, and why their content has seen steep declines in reach. Last Friday, they revealed Facebook’s answer, which was that “your content and your brand has been determined unsafe to the community,” a decision that was “not appeal-able in any way.”
“This is deliberate bias censorship and discrimination. These tactics are unacceptable and we want answers!” Diamond and Silk responded. “We don't sell drugs, we're not laying out in the streets, we not no thugs, we don't belong to no gang. So how are we unsafe to the community?”
A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the message to Fox News, but said it was “inaccurate and not reflective of the way we communicate with our community and the people who run Pages on our platform.”
The spokesperson added that Facebook had contacted the bloggers about resolving the issue, but Diamond and Silk said on Tuesday that nobody from the social media giant had reached out to them. “We haven't spoken to Mark Zuckerberg or any representative from Facebook.”