Letter to the editor: A blatant disregard for the First Amendment

Posted

I am writing in regards to shadow banning on Facebook primarily. What is shadow banning? It is when people lose ranking based on the content they share on social media. Recently at the Clark County Public Health webpage (by recently I mean the last two years) I have called on CCPH to share true information and numbers. A petition recently about medical freedom was led by Rob Anderson. Since that point, I have noticed that less and less of his content was getting likes on their page. Soon after, I started sharing numbers in regards to omicron statewide from DOH reports. I started to notice the same thing happening to me. 

Why is this important? Well, I grabbed a friend of mine who is on Facebook and verified first that Rob Anderson was not blocked on their personal account. I then had them log in on a second browser on my computer and verified that his messages in regards to the petition for Clark County medical freedom was nowhere to be found on his account when selecting all comments from the most relevant dropdown, (everyone on Facebook needs to do this every time they go to any page), and doing the same on my account. While on my page, Rob’s comment was showing up, my friend and myself expanded every single comment section and realized that on his Facebook account, Rob’s comment on the Clark County Public Health page was nowhere to be found. 

Why switch from most relevant to all comments? Theoretically, it will show users all comments on a page. In this case, it did not show Rob’s comment on my friend’s Facebook profile log in, but it did on mine. I can only assume it is because I am friends on Facebook with Rob.



Public Facebook pages are part of the public sector. It is each citizen’s right to speak freely and openly on their feelings in the public sector. In this case, Rob is not able to share anything on the CCPH page. Either Clark County Public Health or Facebook is restricting his right to do so on a Facebook page that each and every one of us pay for using our tax dollars when it comes to both posts from Clark County Public Health, as well as the page maintenance. This is a blatant disregard for the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Before everyone says Facebook is a private company, that does not apply. Understand that it does apply, because Clark County Public Health is a government entity and as such cannot block folks from sharing their pleasures and displeasures under the mask of a public page that is paid for with taxpayer dollars. CCPH, the state Department of Health and our state is doing everything possible to silence the voices and concerns of general citizens. In a recent report for the week ending Jan. 11, vaccinated cases were 62,864, partially vaccinated 4,791 and unvaccinated 61,709. That says it all.

Todd Witthauer, 

Battle Ground