A conference in June on the rise of anti-Christian sentiment, saw Facebook censor the advertising of it on the social media site.
The conference on ‘Religious Freedom at the Crossroads – The Rise of Anti-Christian Sentiment in the West’, is to be held at Sheridan College in Perth, Western Australia, from 14-15 June.
However when a law professor tried to announce the conference on his Facebook page, it was rejected. He received an error message and the posting was blocked. He was told the posting ‘goes against [Facebook’s] Community Standards, so no one can see it’.
Evasive
In 2018, CEO Mark Zuckerberg, during his seven-hour testimony at the joint session of the US Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees, was asked whether Facebook has been engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship. His answer was opaque. This has left Christians and conservatives wondering if Facebook is a platform for only certain types of ideas. The Australian government recently announced that it is to become the first country in the world to introduce jail terms and fines for social media companies that do not quickly remove so-called ‘extremist’ material.
Christians are increasingly labelled ‘extreme right’ for no other reason than advocating on life issues and on marriage definitions. A speaker for the censored conference said: ‘It’s not just religious freedom that is at stake [here]. It is freedom of speech in general. Freedom of speech is definitely at the crossroads and Facebook has just proven this point beyond any reasonable doubt.’
