Facebook goes after opposition networks

20/09/2021 · Colin Meier

The social network deletes 150 channels of the Querdenken

This Thursday, 16 September^[1]Facebook's head of cybersecurity and former cybersecurity official at the US National Security Council, Nathaniel Gleicher^[2], announced that Facebook had taken unprecedented action, deleting 150 channels of Querdenken (literally “thinking outside the box”), part of the German movement opposing the freedom-destroying “anti-corona” measures.

The reason? Facebook accuses them of being a “harmful network” responsible for “hate speech”, “harassment” and the spread of (health) disinformation likely to cause “coordinated social harm”. On the basis of what evidence? “As is known from public media, this group [Querdenken, editor's note] is said to have committed real acts of violence against people working in journalism, the police or the health sector in Germany.”

Accusations without evidence

No evidence, no court decision, no judgment, no criminal investigation, just media hearsay as vague as it is defamatory. Moreover, in Germany, an organisation cannot be banned and dissolved for crimes committed by a few isolated members, because it must first be proven that the organisation itself is violent. Otherwise, any football club one of whose supporters had, for example, beaten someone up after a boozy match could be banned. But for Facebook, if ARD is to be believed, it is enough that the group “has been associated with the use of violence and other ‘social harms’” to censor it. “Being associated with” means nothing other than that someone accuses you (rightly or wrongly) of something and that you are thereby associated with it.

Yet, having regularly taken part in Querdenken's demonstrations myself, and having also spoken at them, I know from experience that these accusations are false. I have never seen acts of or incitement to violence on their part. They have always kept away from any extremism and any resort to aggression. The only visible “acts of violence” seemed to come from the police, rioters and agents provocateurs present at every demonstration.

A reversal of roles

It was in fact Querdenken that organised the large demonstrations in Berlin last summer^[5] and this summer, as well as the one in Leipzig last November^,, and that led the procession of the Europeans United demonstration this Saturday, 11 September 2021, in Brussels. It is they who are the victims of a media smear campaign^, that brands them conspiracy theorists, antisemites, extremists and even neo-Nazis, associating them with the “storming” of the Bundestag. And yet the German government itself admitted a year ago that their demonstrations had exerted no influence in that direction^[12]. On the contrary, it is they who have actually been the victims of attacks against them on several occasions^[13]^{, , ,}.

Conceptual shifts that threaten all opponents

That is the problem: new categories of criminal offence are being invented (“coordinated social harm”), the definition of the concept of “violence” is being twisted, and from now on, as Facebook suggests, it is considered that spreading alternative information and opinions (such as not getting vaccinated, taking part in demonstrations, ignoring police barriers, resorting to passive resistance, refusing to wear a mask or to accept lockdown) could possibly be associated with violence because, supposedly, it encourages the transmission of sars-cov-2, which is said to be linked to hospitalisations, deaths, the extension of the measures and their costs… So, sooner or later, we could all be “associated with violent acts” and find ourselves censored… or worse.

Rejecting all the accusations made by Facebook, Michael Ballweg, founder of Querdenken, has already announced that he has sent Facebook a formal notice.

By Colin Meier, independent citizen journalist and correspondent for Germany at BAM!

https://about.fb.com/de/news/2021/09/entfernung-neuer-arten-von-bedrohlichen-netzwerken/

https://www.csis.org/people/nathaniel-j-gleicher

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/facebook-querdenken-101.html

https://rumble.com/vazdjc-demonstration-gegen-corona-massnahmen-in-leipzig-was-wirklich-geschah.html

https://nuoflix.de/audiatur-et-altera-pars-man-hoere-auch-die-andere-seite

https://nuoflix.de/berlin-28-august-2021--eine-chronologie

https://www.neulandrebellen.de/2020/11/was-war-in-leipzig-los-im-gespraech-mit-robert-fleischer-exomagazin-tv/