Facebook this week banned a Second Amendment group without providing notice or a clear explanation, the group’s president said.
The Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL) Facebook page was taken offline on Tuesday.
“We were banned without notice or exact reason,” Philip Van Cleave, president of the group, told The Epoch Times via email.
An attempt to view the page brought a message that “this content isn’t available right now.”
“When this happens, it’s usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it’s been deleted,” the message from Facebook stated.
The group was used to keep gun owners informed on legislative proposals and new laws and stories relating to gun rights in Virginia, Van Cleave said. The group has also organized peaceful rallies at the state’s General Assembly for 18 years.
“The page and group were helping to coordinate the equivalent this year - which, due to COVID, was a rolling caravan with over 1,000 vehicles driving through Richmond, decked out in with gun-rights messages, signs, flags, etc. We have never had a single violent event in our history and not one arrest,” he wrote.
He believes the ban is politically motivated.
“We were careful and had many moderators to stay in compliance. At the end of the day, we believe they just wanted to shut us up,” he said.
In the wake of the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. capitol, Facebook said it was monitoring the website for threats and signals of violence.
Facing pressure from Democrat lawmakers, Facebook is working on scaling back the amount of “political content” on the social media platform. It has also announced plans to stop recommending political and civic groups to users.
