Here is what I know. About a week ago, I noticed a decrease in volume on my website. Wondering whether I had neglected or failed in my efforts to post my weekly articles to the Facebook pages on which I have participated for many years, I discovered that my posts for the last five weeks have been marked “pending.” I clicked on the link marked Learn more and found the following message:

“To help keep this group safe, admins review some posts before they’re visible to others. You’ll be notified when your post is published in the group.”

I found this highly suspect for two Facebook pages to which I belong captioned “ELCA Rostered Ministers” and “ELCA Uncensored.” ELCA Rostered Ministers states under its “About” heading, “Posts are not moderated in any way, shape or form after complaints over removal of sexist and racist posts. So just work it out amongst yourselves or just scroll past that which you don’t like.” ELCA uncensored gives notice to its members, “This is a group open to all current or former ELCA Clergy and seminarians. Canadians are welcome, too. Other countries as well. The idea is that you will not be censored here. Talk about what you want. You’re CLERGY, for Pete’s sake. Not small children who have to be supervised in a ‘sandbox.’” Thus, I find it highly unlikely that the administrators of these pages have been holding my posts hostage over a month reviewing them for dangerous content. Stranger still was the block placed on a photography page of which I am a member. All we ever do on this page is share photographs. I have shared pictures of birds, bugs and other such nature shots infrequently on this page, but I noticed that the one I shared about two weeks ago was “pending.” Again, the notice stated: “This review is for group safety and so admins can get to know participants. You can create up to 5 posts and comments while admin review is pending. We’ll let you know when admins complete their review and your content is published in the group.” To date, I have received neither notice nor freedom to post.

I paid a visit to Facebook’s info page from which I learned the following:

“Temporary blocks from sharing posts on Facebook can happen if you’ve:

• Posted a lot in a short amount of time
• Shared posts that were marked as unwelcome
• Shared something that goes against our Community Standards

Though we can’t lift the block early, you can still view posts in your Feed at any time. We realize that most people who get temporary blocks just didn’t know about our sharing policies. To avoid blocks like this in the future, the best thing you can do is review our Community Standards.”

Accordingly, I checked out the community standards in an effort to discover which of these I might have violated. I will not try to summarize the exhaustive list of behaviors that might earn blockage or removal of content from Facebook. Suffice to say that I was unable to identify any of Facebook’s community standards remotely applicable to anything I have ever posted. So I am left wondering why I have been blocked from sharing my posts on other pages.

As those of you who follow me regularly know, I have been openly critical of our government’s inhumane treatment of refugees under both Democratic and Republican administrations. I have been critical of our government’s support of the Israeli killing machine at work in Gaza and on the West Bank under both Democratic and Republican administrations. I have been particularly critical of the racist, misogynist, homophobic and xenophobic policies and actions of the current Trump administration. I have gone so far as to say that the GOP ought to be classified as a hate group under the standards of the Southern Poverty Law Center criteria. What I have never done and never will do is incite, advocate or defend violence against any person or group. Again, those who follow me regularly know that, as a Christological pacifist, I refuse to condone or justify even violence that my church would justify under the “just war” doctrine. So, once again, I wonder why Facebook has chosen to block sharing of my posts.  

In ordinary times, I might have ascribed all of this to some hiccup in Facebook’s algorithm. But these are no ordinary times. These are times in which masked thugs are “disappearing” our neighbors from off the street, raiding schools, hospitals and courthouses. These are times in which the FCC is bullying media networks into silencing people it deems offensive to the regime. These are times when the armed forces of the United States created to defend us against foreign enemies are being deployed against our cities and their people. These are times in which those of us who have the temerity to hold political convictions contrary to the Republican administration are characterized as “vermin,” “enemies from within” and “radicals.” So I am led to wonder if I am being censored.

To be clear, I am not so paranoid or so possessed by delusions of grandeur to imagine that I am being monitored by Homeland Security. I am sure Kristi Noem has bigger fish to fry (or puppies to shoot) than a minor league blogger with a following of three hundred fifty and a thousand or so folks who drop by his webpage every so often. I doubt this runs any deeper than Facebook. Nonetheless, Facebook is owned by Meta Platforms, Inc., a publicly traded company. Like all publicly traded companies, its objective is to make money for its shareholders. Meta’s chairman and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, like the business leaders that ultimately supported and enabled the rise of Adolph Hitler, knows on which side his bread is buttered. To avoid being regulated or litigated out of existence, a good CEO will do whatever it takes to placate, ingratiate himself to and avoid conflict with the government whose actions could easily endanger the company’s profits and thereby enrage its shareholders. Is it so far fetched to imagine that Facebook might have an algorithm detecting persons who consistently post articles critical of Trump? Or articles that address in less than favorable terms the life and legacy of Charly Kirk as I recently did? Or any other content that might provoke the MAGA faithful? I do not believe that Zuckerberg or, for that matter, the business leaders that enabled Hitler in the 1930s necessarily supported their government’s oppressive aims. Nothing personal against the Jews-or women, people of color, or LGBTQ+ folk or immigrants. It’s just business.

My suspicions may very well be unfounded. In fact, I hope they are. I hope that I was merely caught up in some well meaning, but defective filter designed by Facebook to screen out genuinely dangerous content. Yet, since there seems to be no way to appeal Facebook’s action or even question it, my suspicions remain. Perhaps it is time to question whether our newspapers, news networks and media platforms belong in the hands of corporate ownership. Perhaps it is time for all of us to wonder who besides Alexa and Siri might be listening to us on those very convenient smart speakers in our homes. Maybe we should be a little more suspicious of all the apps that come with the smart phones and laptops we buy. Regardless whether my being blocked is intentional or inadvertent, it uncovers a frightening reality, namely, that the guarantees protecting our right to privacy, the integrity of our sources of information and our freedom of expression are extremely fragile right now. It would not take much to obliterate them altogether.