Facebook has censored a Babylon Bee article which had Democrat Senator Maisie Hirono using the test of a 'Duck' to determine whether supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barret was a witch. The article was based on a Monty Python skit.

Clearly the context was the puerile and inane question the Senator had asked Judge Coney Barret which was whether she had ever engaged in a sexual assault. The question was one that echoed the witch hunt of an earlier nominee, now Associate Justice kavanagh.

Breitbart carres the story and a pictue of Senator Horono with a duck: https://www.breitbart.com/tech....

You would have thought that after Facebook's and Twitter's censoring of the New York Post that it might have learnt a lesson. It will be interesting to see what Mr Dorsey, the CeO of Twitter, will say befoe the Congress Committe looking into it.

John Milton long ago in The Aeropagitica questioned the knowledge and authority of those who seek to censor. A group of Woke computer IT nerds, purporting to act as a Holy Clerisey of the Office of the Imprimatur, would not seem to be a good ground to start on.

Facebook has been able to hide behind the private company public distinction. Yet, in New Zealand, despite the detractors of the New Zealnd Bill of Rights Act 1990 section 3 provides in subsection (b) an inroad to protect free speech under s 14:

3 Application

This Bill of Rights applies only to acts done—

(a)by the legislative, executive, or judicial branches of the Government of New Zealand; or

(b)by any person or body in the performance of any public function, power, or duty conferred or imposed
on that person or body by or pursuant to law.

It cannot be seriously argued against that Facebook does not provide public function. It does.

Governmental agencies ought to seriously think about how they use Facebook or stop using Facebook. We elect governments to implement policy and govern acccording to the rule of law not Facebook and its rules of Woke.

The hubris of Facebook's content controllers will prove to be their undoing.

Meanwhile, The New York Post's Twitter account remained, as of last night, still blocked. The New York Post is a major USA newspaper and its oldest. Twitter's authoritarian dictate of 'take the content down and we will un block' is inimical to a free deomcratic society and the ethos and purpose of the Fourth Estate.