It has recently been reported that a man in Georgia successfully sued Facebook after his account was permanently banned for allegedly violating the social media network’s child exploitation rules.
The man, Jason Crawford, told WAGA about how he “tapped on [his] Facebook icon” one Sunday morning and found himself locked out of the platform.
The only explanation given by Facebook for his account termination was a brief pop-up message claiming that he had violated their standards on child sexual exploitation.
Crawford admitted that his account had been suspended in the past over political posts, however, he firmly denied having done anything to violate the child exploitation rules.
He expressed frustration at being unable to contact anyone at Facebook to clear his name and get his page back as it seemed as though “Facebook was operated by a bunch of ghosts or something.”
In response, Crawford launched a lawsuit against Facebook’s parent company Meta Platforms in August 2022 accusing them of negligence for banning him from the platform “based on a violation that did not occur.”
After not responding to the lawsuit, Meta Platforms were ordered to pay Crawford $50,000 plus damages for mental anguish since they shut down his account unjustifiably and unreasonably.
“Defendant was properly served with process in this action in according with Georgia law. … Defendant has failed to respond thereto as required by law; this action has automatically become in default; Defendant has failed to open the default as a matter of right within 15 days of the day of each Defendant’s default; and default judgment is demanded against Defendant,” the ruling reads, according to BizPac Review.
“Plaintiff’s injuries and damages, as hereinabove described, were directly and proximately caused by the negligence of Defendant. The Court concludes that Plaintiff has endured great mental pain since Facebook unjustifiably and unreasonably shut down his account and that his pain and suffering will likely continue. The Court further concludes that Plaintiff is entitled to just and adequate compensation for his injuries and for his past and future damages,” the ruling states.
However, despite restoring his account once more, Meta Platforms has yet to pay him any money according to Crawford who believes this is another example of them choosing “not to do the right thing” and disrespecting both him and our legal system.
“It feels like a poke in the eye, and it feels like they’re continuing to poke in the eye,” he said. “Poke the local court system in the eye. Poke me in the eye. Poke other users in the eye, and it’s time that they at least respect our legal system.”
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox 5 Atlanta.
We are all too aware of how big tech companies like Facebook can be quick to silence conservative voices while allowing liberal ones free reign over their platforms with no consequences whatsoever.
While we must ensure these companies are held accountable when it comes to cases such as this which involve actual violations of their terms we must also fight tooth and nail against censorship of conservative views online so that everyone may express themselves freely without fear of repercussion or retribution from those who would seek to silence us simply because our opinions differ from theirs.
3 Responses
Hooray Victory apply nationwide
SUE them again…..
“We are all too aware of how big tech companies like Facebook can be quick to silence conservative voices while allowing liberal ones free reign over their platforms with no consequences whatsoever.” This is a rather extreme comment (“free reign” and “no consequences?”) considering I’ve seen the opposite on many of my friends’ FB pages. Maybe we tend to see what we look for (biases) and people tend not to be particularly objective in such matters.