Facebook restores Kisan Ekta Morcha page after massive outrage

Kisan Ekta Morcha is a farmers’ collective and its Facebook page, less than five days old, had notched up 75,000 followers. The group collects and collates information from different farmers’ unions and posts them across social media

Social networking website Facebook took down the page of Kisan Ekta Morcha for several hours on Sunday, sparking widespread criticism over what farmers said was an attempt to muzzle their voices.

According to Baljeet Singh, the head of the group’s information technology cell, the page was taken down for being in violation of the social media website’s community standards. (AP file photo)

Kisan Ekta Morcha is a farmers’ collective and its Facebook page, less than five days old, had notched up 75,000 followers. The group collects and collates information from different farmers’ unions and posts them across social media. Its page was restored roughly three hours later, reports said.

“Now this is #TooMuchDemocracy. A peaceful protest by #Kissan & @Facebook deletes @Kisanektamorcha Facebook page,” the farmers group tweeted. The group also received a restriction on its Instagram account, after which it was not allowed to post videos or photographs.

According to Baljeet Singh, the head of the group’s information technology cell, the page was taken down for being in violation of the social media website’s community standards.

“We had posted clips countering Narendra Modi’s speech from day before yesterday,” Singh told HT. “Each of his lies was countered with facts and examples. Subsequently, we started a live broadcast with {Swaraj India’s} Yogendra Yadav and in the middle of the broadcast, the page was taken down. ”

According to Bhupendra Choudhary of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, Haryana, the taking down of the Facebook page was “shameful”. “This is not the first time Facebook has done something that explicitly favours the government,” he said.

After massive outrage, Facebook later restored the page. “As per our review, our automated systems found an increased activity on the Facebook page www.facebook.com/kisanektamorcha and flagged it as spam, which violates our Community Standards. We restored the page in less than 3 hours when we became aware of the context. The review showed that only the Facebook page was affected by the automated systems while the Instagram account remained unaffected...” said Facebook company spokesperson.