Censored factual ad criticizing support for transgender Equality Act
Facebook has been accused in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission of illegally contributing some $50,000 to the campaign of Joe Biden and Democratic Sen. Gary Peters by censoring a truthful ad that criticized his support for the proposed Equality Act promoting transgenderism.
The social media company cited a third-party “fact-checker” that argued the ad “lacked context.” But even the fact-checker, Politifact, had to admit the ad was not in error.
The complaint by the American Principles Project seeks an immediate investigation into the censorship of its ad concerning the law that would allow boys to compete in girls sports and much more.
It also wants an investigation into “the in-kind contributions made by Respondent Facebook, Inc. to the campaign of Democrat U.S. Senator Gary Peters from Michigan, to the campaign of Joe Biden and to the Democrat Party, by reasons of its fact-checking services and its content suppressive adverse action taken against Complainant in this instance … or in the alternative its violation of duties of disclosure and reporting.”
The APP ad that ran until it was censored:
Terry Schilling, executive director of the APP, said that by “censoring this ad on such a flimsy basis, and by allowing ads in favor of Democrats to run unfettered on its platform, Facebook materially contributed to the campaigns of Peters and Biden.”
“Our complaint alleges that this in-kind contribution amounted to nearly $50,000 — a clear violation of federal campaign finance law,” he said.
APP pointed out that during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the censorship.
Zuckerberg dodged the question:
The complaint points out that suppressing information violates Facebook’s own policies, meaning the company was not acting “in the ordinary course of business” when it attacked the ad.
“Instead, Facebook acted in clandestine conformity with a demonstrated pattern of staff and institutional support for Democrat Party candidates and issues. Through its use of a subjective and dubious opinion from its fact-checking ‘partner’ Politifact regarding the APP PAC ad in questions, one that Facebook knew or should have known was a baseless opinion that would result in wrongfully suppressing the APP PAC ad, Facebook acted as a political campaign surrogate for Democrat candidate Gary Peters and the Democrat Party and its presidential candidate Joe Biden,” the complaint said.
“It did so by deliberately and wrongfully suppressing from its Facebook platform, at a critical juncture in the election, APP PAC’s advertisement that criticized Gary Peters, the Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate in Michigan and Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden on an issue of particular importance to the voters of Michigan.”
That such suppression played a role in the 2020 election was confirmed by a Media Research Center poll of Biden voters that found the outcome was impacted by the censorship of the Hunter Biden story by Twitter, Facebook, and establishment media.
PJMedia reported that even though PolitiFact “could find no factual error in the ad, the ‘fact-check’ claimed the ad was ‘missing context’ because it contradicted Biden’s transgender agenda. Facebook used this ‘fact-check’ to flag the ad.”
The ad simply pointed out that female athletes are deprived of a fair shot at competing when regulators redefine words that allow a boy to compete in girls’ events.
The ad said: “But what if that shot was taken away by a competitor who claims to be a girl but was born a boy? Senator Gary Peters and Joe Biden support legislation that would destroy girls’ sports. They call it equality. Really? That’s not fair. Not fair at all.”
The FEC complaint estimates that because of the suppression, the PAC was unable to reach about 390,000 voters.
“The necessary corollary is that the campaign of U.S. Senator Gary Peters was gifted the financial value of the APP PAC ad that would have reached those remaining 388,608 voters with the contra-Peters ad, but never did because of Facebook’s actions; thus, at $0.11 per voter contact x 388,608 voters not reached, this amounts to a $47,746.88 in-kind contribution through Facebook services to the campaign of Democrat Gary Peters,” the complaint said.
The transgender sports issue is in federal court in Idaho and Connecticut.
The complaint in Connecticut argues: “While boys and girls have comparable athletic capabilities before boys hit puberty, male puberty quickly increases the levels of circulating testosterone in healthy teen and adult males to levels ten to twenty times higher than the levels that occur in healthy adult females, and this natural flood of testosterone drives a wide range of physiological changes that give males a powerful physiological athletic advantage over females. Inescapable biological facts of the human species [are] not stereotypes, ‘social constructs,’ or relicts of past discrimination.”
