Conservative party gets account restricted after posting video deemed to not respect Meta’s community standards.
Portugal’s third largest political party, right-wing Chega, has received a decade-long restriction from Facebook (Meta) just a month and a half before the European Parliamentary elections.
In a post published to Facebook just hours ago, a party member with tape over their mouth brings attention to the shadow ban and said they will not be silenced.
“In Portugal and Brazil, censorship threatens to return with a vengeance. We have to be attentive. They will not pass by us,” the post reads in Portuguese.
Facebook claims the party has been restricted for not respecting community standards.
The leader of the political party, André Ventura said this is ‘political censorship’ and will refer the situation to Parliament and the courts.
“When questioned by Observador, André Ventura confirmed that the case has already been reported to Facebook, but went further and revealed that CHEGA will ‘take the matter to Parliament and all the judicial bodies until Facebook is condemned’,” the Observador reported in Portuguese on Sunday.
The Portuguese tabloid Correio da Manhã reported in Portuguese that the censorship stemmed from a post about violent gypsies.
“Two days ago, a video was published on CHEGA’s Facebook page entitled ‘Until when will we accept this impunity?’. In it, André Ventura makes a statement in parliament and images appear of a group that admits to having beaten and shaved a woman’s hair in order to take away her children,” the Portugal Resident reported.
“In the video, André Ventura says that there is ‘brutal impunity’ with ‘the gypsy community in Portugal’ and that ‘there is only one party capable of telling the truth’,” the Portugal Resident reported.
“‘Your account is restricted for 3,649 days. Your account activity has violated our community standards. Therefore, you will not be able to perform one or more usual actions,’ was the message sent by Meta to Chega’s official Facebook account—which boasts nearly 200,000 followers—on Sunday afternoon’,” the European Conservative reported Monday.
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