March 23, 2016: Politics and patriarchy

Turkish publication Yeni Şafak found several of their verified Facebook pages, including their Arabic, Turkish and Sports pages, removed this past week. Facebook officials cited “the merging of accounts” as justification for the ban.

The Cartoonists Rights Network International reports that Indian cartoonist Kanika Mishra’s cartoon criticizing an Indian government minister’s statement that ‘the concept of marital rape doesn’t exist in the Indian context’ was removed from Facebook.

Facebook removed a photo of a woman and her newborn attached by their umbilical cord shortly after birth that was posted by a member of a private Facebook group on the anniversary of her daughter’s birth. The user received a notification from Facebook containing references to both nudity and sexually explicit imagery.

Indigenous Australian writer Celeste Liddle is reportedly seeking legal assistance after being banned from Facebook for the third time for posting images of topless Aboriginal women taking part in a traditional ceremony.

Global Voices also reported on the subject, noting other cases in which images of topless Indigenous women had been removed from Facebook.

WikiLeaks accused Facebook of censoring their recent release of leaked Hillary Clinton emails. When posting the link to their website on Facebook, the group received a notice that the link could not be posted because “[your] computer may be infected with a virus or a malicious browser extension.”

A filmmaker reporting on anti-fracking activists found his Facebook page suspended for violating community standards. Conservative news site The Rebel interviewed the filmmaker in a video.