ANTI-OBAMA BENGHAZI MEME GETS CENSORED FOR ‘VIOLATING FACEBOOK’S STATEMENT OF RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES’
Posted on October 30, 2012 at 8:52pm by 
Jason Howerton
Jason Howerton
Facebook reportedly took down an image, or a meme, posted by the Special Operations Speaks PAC (SOS) that was critical of President Barack Obama’s handling of the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi. You may have actually seen it before it was taken down — it had earned roughly 24,000 “likes.”
The meme, which can be seen below, shows both Obama and deceased al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden with the following message: “Obama called the SEALs and THEY got bin Laden. When the SEALs called Obama, THEY GOT DENIED.”
(Source: Breitbart.com)
It was first taken down and the account was issued a warning. The account was later suspended for 24 hours for defying the warning and re-posting the image — with the warning above it.
The message is based on reports that indicate CIA operatives in Benghazi were told to “stand down” rather than help after Americans on the ground in Libya attempted to call out for help. Reports also suggest that the White House situation room had access to a live feed of the chaos at the U.S. compound as well as real-time email updates from within State Department.
Breitbart.com’s Awr Hawkins reportedly spoke with Larry Ward, president of Political Media, Inc., the company responsible for the SOS Facebook account.
“We created and posted this meme on Saturday after news broke that Obama had known and denied SEALs the backup they requested,” Ward told Breitbart.com.
He continued: “Once the meme was up it garnered 30,000 shares, approx. 24,000 likes, and was read by hundreds of thousands of people — all within 24 hrs. On Sunday, I went into the SOS Facebook page to post something else and found a warning from Facebook that we had violated Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities with our meme. So I copied the warning, put it on the meme as as caption, and re-posted the meme to the Facebook page.”
(source: Breitbart.com)
The re-posted meme was removed within 8 hours before Facebook suspended the SOS PAC’s account for 24 hours.
Is this a violation of free speech or did SOS violate Facebook policy?
Facebook Claims -- Accidental Mistake -- in Censoring Navy SEALS
By Bobby Eberle October 31, 2012 12:34 pm
It's just a fact that over the six weeks, the media have completely checked out from their responsibility to investigate and report on the tragedy and complete failure of leadership surrounding the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Now, Facebook has joined in the mix by pulling down a meme from Special Operations Speaks (SOS) PAC which is critical of Obama's handling of the situation. Oh, but wait... now they say it's just an "innocent mistake."
Here's the story. First, the SOS PAC put together a meme for distribution on Facebook. For those of you not familiar with the term, a meme describes a small piece of information which gets spread across the Internet. In many cases, a meme is an image with text associated with it. The meme created by the Special Operations Speaks PAC is shown below:
This image was posted on Facebook, and that's when the controversy began.
According to information on the SOS PAC web site, the meme spread quickly and "within 24 hours almost 30,000 people shared and hundreds of thousands viewed the meme." Then, it disappeared for an "unspecified violation of Facebook's terms of Rights and Responsibilities."
This, of course, raised a major red flag with the organization:
"It looks like Obama's liberal followers in Facebook HQ are terrified of how damaging the Benghazi scandal is for the President. We understand that Facebook can run their site however they'd like, but when they're trying to quietly squelch opposition to what is a clear leadership failure that resulted in the tragic deaths of some of our nation's heroes, they deserve the to be called out on it," said Larry Bailey, CAPT (SEAL), USN (Ret)."We are paying advertisers on Facebook. It is outrageous that Mark Zuckerburg, founder of Facebook, who worked to elect Obama in 2008, would sell out patriots who made the ultimate sacrifice - all to serve the political ambitions of the man who let them die."
As reported at Breitbart.com, the media company responsible for posting the meme received a warning from Facebook and then a 24-hour suspension because the meme was still being displayed.
But the story doesn't end there. After being warned and then suspended, the SOS PAC received the following message from Facebook:
Hello,A member of our team accidentally removed something you posted on Facebook. This was mistake, and we sincerely apologize for this error. We've since restored the content, and you should now be able to see it.The Facebook Team
What is Facebook trying to do? Let's just say that the removal of the meme was a mistake. Was the 24-hour suspension a mistake too? The truth needs to come out about what happened in Libya, and the last thing we need is an organization like Facebook trying to impede the show of support for getting to the bottom of the story.
source: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/10/30/Facebook-Censors-Navy-SEALS-To-Protect-Obama-on-Benghazi-Gate
Facebook censors Navy SEALs for claiming Obama denied them help
Published: 01 November, 2012, 00:13
Facebook page of Special Operation Speaks PAC
(Image from facebook.com)
Facebook admits error in censoring anti-Obama message
Special Operations Speaks' meme against President Obama. (Special Operations Speaks - Special Operations Speaks)Larry Ward will concede that he “poked the bear.” As president of the D.C.-based Political Media Inc., Ward administers theFacebook page of a group called Special Operations Speaks (SOS), an anti-Obama group consisting of “veterans, legatees, and supporters of the Special Operations communities of all the Armed Forces.” Essentially hard guys who want the president out of office. “These are the toughest sons of a guns out there and they say what they mean,” says Ward.
On Saturday, Ward woke up and realized he needed to post something on SOS’s page. He checked the news, which was still buzzing with Friday’s report by Fox News that a request for military support from besieged U.S. personnel in Benghazi “was denied by the CIA chain of command.” Ward’s takeaway was that it had become “more evident that Obama was responsible for denying the troops backup.”
Time to cook up a meme. Ward settled on a provocative one: “Obama called the SEALs and THEY got bin Laden. When the SEALs called Obama, THEY GOT DENIED.” It worked. Over the next day or so, the thing had racked up 30,000 shares, says Ward, noting that it “was by far the best meme we’d had to date.”
The meme had a touch of the mischievous in it as well. It tagged the picture of President Obama to his Facebook campaign page, a move that officially alerted Team Obama that its guy had been featured in a photo on the SOS page. In other words, it was guaranteed to antagonize the president’s supporters. And that's pretty much what happened, in Ward’s version of events. The next steps came quickly:
*Likely driven by offended Obamaites, Facebook sent Ward a warning about the meme. Take it down, said Facebook. Ward didn’t comply.
*Facebook took down the image, with this explanation, as discussed on a Breitbart.com story on the matter:
We removed content you posted.
We removed the content you posted or were admin of because it violates Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.
*Ward re-posted the image along with Facebook’s rationale for removing it.
*Facebook took the image down again and froze the account for 24 hours, in effect stifling SOS on Facebook.
After all that censorship and bureaucracy, Facebook is now acknowledging that it was a mistake. Here’s the note that Facebook’s Andrew Noyes passed along to the Erik Wemple Blog: “This was an error and we apologize for any inconvenience it may have caused. They can feel free to repost the image.”
What a privilege!
There’s no question about the inconvenience: SOS is a group that’s trying to influence political behavior through open communication, something that Facebook is in business to defend and promote, not to crush. That it did so with just more than a week left before the election poses more of a crisis than an inconvenience for SOS. As Ward notes, SOS “invested a lot” in the Facebook page and spent 12 weeks building the thing.
As for the meme itself, it might draw a snicker or two from journalism’s fact-checking police. After all, the Fox News report alleged that the CIA “chain of command” had denied military assistance for U.S. personnel in Benghazi, not Obama himself. Whatever — the meme was miles inside the bounds of acceptable political expression, not to mention Facebook’s own standards. It’s almost an insult to the meme to examine it vis-a-vis those standards, but here goes anyhow.
Facebook says “You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user.” SOS merely voiced an opinion.
Facebook says “You will not post content that: is hate speech, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence.” SOS was fully clothed.
Facebook says “You will not develop or operate a third-party application containing alcohol-related, dating or other mature content (including advertisements) without appropriate age-based restrictions.” SOS was kid-friendly.
Mistakes happen, for sure, yet Facebook made three or four in quick succession, evidence that this wasn’t just a goof. “They warned us once. They censored it twice and then they suspended our account,” says Ward. (Under Facebook terminology, a suspension is more severe than merely freezing the ability of the user to post). The social networking site reportedly has automated systems that police its content, though Ward says he received word that the censorship in this case came from a human being, and he cites this e-mail as proof:
Hello,
A member of our team accidentally removed something you posted on Facebook. This was mistake, and we sincerely apologize for this error. We’ve since restored the content, and you should now be able to see it.
The Facebook Team
Brevity doesn’t work here, Facebook. An accounting of just why a perfectly reasonable, catchy and inoffensive post, customized for the Internet, triggered a multi-step clampdown requires more than a couple of sentences. Attempts to get a more detailed accounting of the SOS incident from Facebook have failed.
SOS booster and retired U.S. Navy SEAL Larry Bailey puts the situation this way: “It looks like Obama’s liberal followers in Facebook HQ are terrified of how damaging the Benghazi scandal is for the President. We understand that Facebook can run their site however they’d like, but when they’re trying to quietly squelch opposition to what is a clear leadership failure that resulted in the tragic deaths of some of our nation’s heroes, they deserve the to be called out on it,”
CENSORSHIP and yes yet another Exec Order!!
The news is sad isn’t it? Just when you think you’ve heard it all something else comes along that puts more knots in your stomach. It’s never ending! The situation in America just keeps getting worse! Here are some stories today that demonstrate what I’m talking about other than the hurricane damage…….
FACEBOOK’S CENSORS NAVY SEALS!
It appears that Facebook has censored a group of Navy Seals for mentioning Obama in a post. The group is known as the Special Operations Speaks PAC (SOS). The group posted a message on Facebook critical of Obama saying he denied backup forces to come to the aid of forces under attack in Benghazi. The post demonstrated how the SEALS supported Obama in their mission to kill Osama bin Laden but when the SEALS needed help Obama was nowhere to be found. Surprised? I’m not!
Apparently Facebook does not believe in the constitutional right to free speech and instead they’ve chosen to do what any good BANANA REPUBLIC would do and that is protect the Dear Leader. This is disgusting! Will there be an outcry over this on Facebook? I doubt it as most people will think “so what?” and forget the whole thing. That is…..until Facebook censors one of their posts. In the comments section of the below article you’ll find several comments people have left concerning how they’ve already been censored by Facebook especially when their post concerns Obama! One person had a GREAT IDEA. “Daniel Martin Gray” who identifies himself as an American citizen and Ex-Progressive posted a comment saying, “If they are going to give us the business, all we have to do is take our business ELSEWHERE!” And that is exactly what should now happen. People ought not to stand for this censorship! They should abandon Facebook in groves and go elsewhere! Hey, no people equals no business for Facebook! YOU made Facebook and YOU can take them down! If we don’t stop this censorship soon it will only grow worse. Do you really want your children growing up in a NAZI AMERIKA?
Oh one last thing regarding Facebook….they have also censored Alex Jones today. He put up a pic of bin Laden with words across his chest saying “Al-CIA-da”. Facebook removed it saying it violated copyrights and temporarily suspended Jone’s account. Again CENSORSHIP!
OBAMA’S LATEST EO SANCTIONS CORPORATISM OFFICIALLY!!
On Oct 26, 2012 Obama signed another of his infamous Exec Orders this time establishing a WH Security Partnership Council which is classical FASCISM or as Benito Mussolini called it CORPORATISM….the merging of State and Corporation. The EO creates local partnerships between federal and private companies to “address homeland security challenges” whatever the hell that means. You can read more about this FARCE at:
December 27, 2011 – KENTUCKY – There’s a bizarre scene in Montgomery County where dozens of birds are dead. More than 30 birds are lying dead on Indian Mound Drive at the intersection of Grassy Lick Road in Mt. Sterling. All the birds appear to be the same species, and seem to have died and landed at this spot all at once. No word yet about what caused their death. The strange sight was first spotted on Christmas morning by people who live nearby. “Yesterday morning around 9:30 am when I pulled out on to the bypass, and there was a whole slew of birds,” explains local resident Karen Williams. “I didn’t know where they came from. I didn’t know. I thought if someone shot them there was an awful lot of shooting going on but I don’t know,’ said Williams. –
December 15, 2011 – BLOOMFIELD, N.M. — A strange sight in Bloomfield where 40 to 50 dead birds were reportedly found along U.S. 64 last week. Some of the black and speckled birds were lying on their backs with their small feet sticking up in the air, and at least one was missing its head. The Daily-Times reports about 30 dead birds were north of the highway and about 20 additional piles of flattened feathers were on the highway. Wildlife biologist John Kendall with the Bureau of Land Management investigated the cluster. He thinks they likely roosted in shrubs north of the highway Wednesday night and died when they flew into the side of a large truck driving the highway late Wednesday or early Thursday. It’s also unlikely the birds died from environmental causes because they were so close together when they died. –
December 14, 2011 – UTAH – Thousands of migratory birds died on impact after apparently mistaking a Wal-Mart parking lot and other areas of southern Utah for bodies of water and plummeting to the ground in what one wildlife expert called the worst downing she’s ever seen. Crews went to work cleaning up the dead birds and rescuing the survivors after the creatures crash-landed in the St. George area Monday night. By Tuesday evening, volunteers had rescued more than 2,000 birds, releasing them into nearby bodies of water. “They’re just everywhere,” said Teresa Griffin, wildlife program manager for the Utah Department of Wildlife Resource’s southern region. “It’s been nonstop. All our employees are driving around picking them up, and we’ve got so many people coming to our office and dropping them off.” Officials say stormy conditions probably confused the flock of grebes, a duck-like aquatic bird likely making its way to Mexico for the winter. The birds tried to land in a Cedar City Wal-Mart parking lot and elsewhere. “The storm clouds over the top of the city lights made it look like a nice, flat body of water. All the conditions were right,” Griffin told The Spectrum newspaper in St. George. “So the birds landed to rest, but ended up slamming into the pavement. No human injuries or property damage have been reported. Griffin noted most downings are localized “but this was very widespread. I’ve been here 15 years and this was the worst downing I’ve seen,” she told the newspaper. Officials said they were continuing the rescue effort that started Tuesday afternoon and included an enthusiastic group of volunteers. The surviving grebes were released into bodies of water in southern Utah’s Washington County, including a pond near Hurricane. –
December 29, 2011 – ALASKA - Scientists in Alaska are investigating whether local seals are being sickened by radiation from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. Biologists at first thought the seals were suffering from a virus, but they have so far been unable to identify one, and tests are now underway to find out if radiation is a factor. Scores or multiples of twenty, ring seals have washed up on Alaska’s Arctic coastline since July. Their symptoms include: bleeding lesions on the hind flippers, irritated skin around the nose and eyes, and patchy hair loss on the animals’ fur coats. John Kelley, Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks said, “We recently received samples of seal tissue from diseased animals captured near St Lawrence Island with a request to examine the material for radioactivity. There is concern expressed by some members of the local communities that there may be some relationship to the Fukushima nuclear reactor’s damage.” Test results would not be available for several weeks. –
