Facebook Says Suspension of Candace Owens’s Account is ‘a Mistake’

Candace Owens, American conservative commentator and activist, speaks at the High School Leadership Summit, a Turning Point USA event, at George Washington University in Washington on July 26, 2018. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

Facebook has restored conservative commentator Candace Owens’s account and said they “made a mistake.”

In a Twitter post on May 17, Owens shared a screenshot which appeared to be a Facebook notice.

“It looks like we made a mistake and removed something you posted on Facebook that didn’t go against our Community Standard. We want to apologize and let you know that we’ve restored your content and removed any blocks on your account related to this incorrect action,” read the statement.

Owens didn’t buy the explanation and credited the restoration of her account to her having a “large enough platform to make noise and force reconsideration.”

“What about the millions of people who do not? What about the millions of conservatives who are forever silenced on social media?” she wrote on Twitter.

She also argued that conservatives were censored under the labels of white supremacy.

“Typically when they censor conservatives, they mask it behind white supremacy and their commitment to ending it,” she told Fox News. “Their expectation is that masses will believe that excuse without digging further. Censoring me paints a different story, however-as no one with a modicum of intelligence would be so quick as to accept that narrative.”

“The truth, which most conservatives know and many fair-minded liberals are waking up to, is that social media companies are attempting to meddle in the 2020 election by silencing and de-platforming certain individuals,” she added.

Owens said on May 17 that her Facebook page has been suspended for seven days for posting that liberal supremacy is a threat to black America.

“Black America must wake up to the great liberal hoax. White supremacy is not a threat. Liberal supremacy is,” she stated in the then deleted post which also quoted statistics on the poverty rate among blacks.

Owens was notified later that her account was closed because the post had violated the Facebook Community Standards.

Facebook didn’t elaborate on which exact rule was violated.

Facebook reportedly has a list of “hate agents” that includes Owens, but it’s unclear whether the suspension of her account is connected to the list.

According to the Breitbart News, Facebook maintains a  spreadsheet with names of prominent right-wing and alternative media figures who were banned from the platform recently. Owens is on the list in a category marked as “extra credit.”

Facebook confirmed the existence of the list and didn’t deny that Owens’s name is on the list, Breitbart News reported.

Owens recently made headlines in a tense exchange with Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) during an April 9 hearing on white nationalism and hate crimes before the House Judiciary Committee.

Lieu played a 30-second clip of Owens’s comments on Adolf Hitler and labeled Owens as a legitimizer of Hitler’s white nationalist ideology, according to Fox News. However, Owens said she didn’t think Hitler was a nationalist because he “killed his own people” in the full clip, NTD News reported.

“I do not believe we should be characterizing Hitler as a nationalist,” Owens said. “He was a homicidal, psychopathic maniac that killed his own people. A nationalist would not kill their own people. … That was unbelievably dishonest, and he did not allow me to respond to it.”

Following Lieu’s act, Owens denounced Lieu’s allegation vehemently: “I think it’s pretty apparent that Mr. Lieu believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip … That was unbelievably dishonest … I’m deeply offended by the insinuation of revealing that clip without the question that was asked of me.”

Videos of Owens’s comments garnered millions of views, including a C-Span clip that got over 4 million views in 24 hours.

Zachary Stieber from NTD.com contributed to the report.