Facebook even removed a reader’s post that said, “Vote for Hovde!” labeling it spam.
Facebook is blatantly – and outrageously – interfering in the close Wisconsin race for U.S. Senate by repeatedly removing a Wisconsin Right Now news story that alerts voters about an “America First” candidate on the ballot who was recruited by Democrats in a deceptive attempt to defeat Republican Eric Hovde.
More election interference – Facebook removing WRN's story warning conservative voters about Thomas Leager's candidacy. pic.twitter.com/ncYFRZSFKn
— Wisconsin Right Now (@wisconsin_now) October 14, 2024
To boil it down – Democrats are trying to trick conservative voters into choosing the Democratic-recruited candidate to destroy Hovde’s candidacy, according to the Associated Press, and now Facebook (Meta) is trying to prevent conservative voters from learning about the scheme.
In the most egregious example of Facebook censorship, on Oct. 13, Facebook removed a post sharing the story by WRN reader Dan Dahlke. “Vote for Hovde!” he wrote. Facebook removed the post, declaring that it “goes against our Community Standards on spam.” The story in question, which we published that same day, simply alerts readers to an Associated Press investigation that found that Wisconsin candidate Thomas Leager, who is positioned as a far-right conservative, was among candidates throughout the country actually recruited by a Democratic donor front group.
We told Hovde what Facebook was doing, and he said: “This is Facebook engaging in election interference again. It is a well-established fact that Democrats have orchestrated a phony candidate under the America first name to confuse voters. This is hurting our democracy and Facebook is trying to unfairly interfere with an election.”
“It’s frustrating when I’m trying to inform my friends and family” about what’s going on with the election, Dahlke told WRN.
Facebook has targeted Wisconsin Right Now before, even though the news site has won multiple gold Milwaukee Press Club awards for the best investigative, news, and public service reporting in Wisconsin, among other honors. In May, Facebook removed a Wisconsin Right Now news story that accurately reported that Trump led President Joe Biden in a CNN poll, calling it “spam.” Facebook also briefly deleted Wisconsin Right Now’s page altogether, then dialed back our reach and banned us from posting live videos for a time due to our accurate news analysis of legal questions surrounding the Kyle Rittenhouse gun charge, which was subsequently thrown out by the judge. The other violation? Sharing the iconic Falling Man story by Esquire on 9/11.
But the aggressive action Facebook is taking to block us and multiple conservatives in Wisconsin from sharing our story on the AP’s investigation of Thomas Leager is, arguably worse. That’s because the U.S. Senate race is so close, and, if enough conservatives are tricked into voting for Leager – because they don’t know that Democrats recruited him, per AP – it could decide the race in favor of Democrat Tammy Baldwin.
Wisconsinites have a right to read this information. Period. We are exceptionally tired of having to constantly fight against big tech’s arbitrary censorship.
Facebook also removed posts of the story on Leager on the pages of Wisconsin Right Now, its sister page WRN, and the page of one of its co-editors. In addition, multiple readers told Wisconsin Right Now that Facebook would not allow them to post the story.
More election interference against Hovde by #meta https://t.co/EFXm7fTH3q pic.twitter.com/gH6ov1Wkxg
— Wisconsin Right Now (@wisconsin_now) October 13, 2024
More election interference by #Facebook against Eric Hovde https://t.co/EFXm7fTH3q pic.twitter.com/IIgWviXLIm
— Wisconsin Right Now (@wisconsin_now) October 13, 2024
Election interference by #Facebook in the #Wisconsin Senate race to hurt Hovde https://t.co/EFXm7fUeSY pic.twitter.com/cUYElnRtaU
— Wisconsin Right Now (@wisconsin_now) October 13, 2024
It’s like Wisconsin’s version of the Hunter laptop story – Facebook blatantly removing a story that could hurt the Democrat in the race. In this case, the story was exposing deception, but Facebook doesn’t want voters to learn about it.
This is not insignificant. Wisconsin Right Now is Wisconsin’s most-read conservative news site outside talk radio. We have extensive reach on Facebook.
By preventing us – and multiple readers from getting the word out – Facebook is interfering in the election in a way that could toss it to Baldwin.
Bizarrely, Facebook allowed some readers to post the story but not others. The censorship seems arbitrary. But it’s happened repeatedly.
When a WRN co-editor reposted the link, it remained up, at least for now. Facebook also allowed a post of the original AP story, which indicates Meta is targeting conservative media. To be blunt, though, many conservative readers in Wisconsin trust WRN stories more than they trust the AP. Furthermore, removing multiple posts is strangling conservatives’ ability to broaden the reach on the story – and it’s a story that voters have a right to know.
