Kent League of Women Voters confused, concerned about Facebook ban

Three weeks ago, Facebook disabled the Kent League of Women Voters page, leaving its members mystified.

The page was put in what Kent LWV President Sherry Rose called “Facebook jail” the night before Ohio’s March 19 primary election. Kent’s LWV leadership is appealing its sentence, which Rose said Facebook warns could last 10 years.

Facebook’s webpage states that content that violates the company’s “community standards” will be removed, and that the person or group will be notified to “better understand the reason behind the removal. Depending on what policy the content went against, and your history of previous violations, your account may also be restricted or disabled,” Facebook’s site states.

What standard or standards Kent LWV violated is a mystery. Rose said she and other members have tried to learn the reason, but they just receive a canned response claiming there are bad actors out there who will try to skirt the system.

Kent LWV is not alone. Shannon Augustus, director of media relations for League of Women Voters of the U.S., said four local leagues have contacted the national office this year alone. Each one has had its Facebook page removed.

“Voters rely on the social media accounts of trusted sources in their communities like their local Leagues,” Augustus said. “It is troubling that local league Facebook pages have been suspended so close to elections, which harms the voters looking for accurate election information on the social media platform.”

David Silva, an assistant communication studies professor at Kent State, noted that individuals and groups of Facebook users, as well as political opponents, have launched flagging campaigns against particular groups, in which they mark posts as “inappropriate.” The freeze may be more a result of the number of flag requests than anything that is actually in the posts, he said.

When flags are placed on content that is extreme or violent, society benefits, but “those same tools can be used maliciously,” he said.

That the LWV is being targeted, he said, is no accident and may reflect society’s longstanding and pervasive targeting of disadvantaged groups. Given that the LWV’s focus on voting rights benefits traditionally disadvantaged groups, that makes sense. Silva could not say for sure, but he thought it was “fairly likely” that a group opposed to the LWV was having its members report those posts.

“Social media is no better than real life. It’s no different where disadvantaged groups continue to have their voices under-represented,” he said.

Because Facebook has deprioritized its investment in ensuring that content flags are coming from authentic uncoordinated sources, Silva said, “the ability for someone to abuse the Facebook system, which is built for something good, to keep harmful things off of social media, obviously leads to bad outcomes for this particular group.”

Rose said she, Kent LWV’s other leaders and LWV members have consciously avoided making assumptions as to why or how the group’s page was disabled.

“We can speculate until the cows come home but that doesn’t make it fact,” Rose said. “We are concerned that we are being attacked or reported because we are promoting voting rights. There is nothing that we have posted. The only thing we have addressed has been voting and redistricting.”

Still, they wonder.

“What have we violated?” she asked. “That’s what we want to know, and they don’t share that with you. They just say you’re in jail. We truly don’t know where this will go. It’s hard to appeal when you don’t even know what you’ve done in the first place.”

While Kent LWV awaits Facebook’s ruling, the nonpartisan group is pushing its message through other social media platforms. Should all else fail, Kent LWV will simply create another Facebook page, she said.

Being banned has galvanized the LWV to fight harder.

“We’ll never back down from voting rights. Never. We’ll continue to fight for that as we have for 104 years. We’re never gone away, and we’re not going away now,” Rose said.

To fight back, groups could begin their own flagging campaigns, playing as dirty as possible because it’s effective — but it’s not a strategy Silva condones.

“I think that’s really bad,” he cautioned. “I think going to the lowest denominator is what’s going to continue hurting democratic systems, especially here in the U.S.”

When coordinated flag campaigns lead to asymmetry in online content, the result is zero-sum politicking that some groups embrace, Silva said. They exploit Facebook’s own weaknesses to achieve their goals, and promote whatever shady behavior it takes to accomplish their agendas.

“If we view politics as there is always a winner and there is always a loser, that leads to bad outcomes. Politics isn’t zero sum. The goal should be to find consensus, to bridge across divisions, to take actions that are beneficial for citizens,” Silva said.

Treating politics as a win-lose game reduces the chances for collaboration and compromise: the good democratic values that actually create good politics and a good system, he said.