As another 9/11 anniversary came and went, Facebook censored 9/11 photos rather than what appeared to be an embarrassing suicide joke from President Joe Biden. Even Facebook had to admit its mistake.
Facebook censored an image of a man falling to his death from the burning World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, due to suicidal content. Meanwhile, the platform left up uncensored videos of President Biden appearing to joke to cancer patients that they should not make suicidal leaps.
The image of a man falling or jumping to his death from the North Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11 has become iconic of the horrific terrorist attacks that day, but Facebook censored multiple posts of the image on the 9/11 anniversary, according to purported screenshots. The platform has since claimed that the censorship was a mistake, according to Reclaim The Net.
Facebook reversed its censorship and apologized, saying, “We’re sorry we got this wrong,” Reclaim The Net reported.
Radio host Andy Langer tweeted screenshots indicating that Facebook applied a filter to his post about the falling man jumping out of the burning Twin Towers on 9/11. Facebook said that image violated its “Community Standards on content related to suicide,” per the screenshots.
“Like so many of you, every 9/11 since publication, I’ve shared @TomJunod’s The Falling Man- his unforgettable @esquire story of 9/11’s Unknown Solider- on @facebook. But not today. I respect the importance of the filter/safeguard, but disagree with its application here,” Langer wrote in his tweet.
ESPN senior writer Tom Junod wrote in a tweet that when he tried to post a link to his story about the falling man, Facebook replied, “‘We had to remove something you posted because we’re concerned it might promote or encourage self-harm or suicidal behavior.’”
Junod slammed the “absurdity” of Facebook censoring the image, saying that it is part of our “national record.” The journalist added that “What offends me in 2022 is what offended me in 2003, when @esquire published the story: 4/ The notion that there was a right way to die on 9/11 and a wrong way — that there were some deaths we were willing to talk about and some we weren’t, because they were too upsetting and because they violated the national narrative.”
Now juxtapose that to Facebook’s response to a recent clip tweeted by The Washington Free Beacon that shows Joe Biden gesturing to a balcony and saying to cancer patients, “Don't jump from up there!” Biden’s full speech remains uncensored and without a context label on Facebook.
Why is Biden allowed to make tactless suicide jokes to cancer patients but Americans are not allowed to post photos surrounding the 9/11 tragedy?
Big Tech has a history of censoring content and then restoring it, claiming it was a mistake.
Facebook wasn’t alone in censoring 9/11 content. Instagram, owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta, also flubbed on 9/11-related censorship. Instagram fact-checkers inaccurately fact-checked Human Events senior editor Jack Posobiec’s post of former President Donald Trump at Ground Zero in 2001, Reclaim The Net wrote. “Missing Context. The same information was reviewed by independent fact-checkers in another post,” Instagram’s fact-check said.
Leftist fact-checkers Snopes and Lead Stories said the image was missing context because there was “No evidence that Donald Trump paid hundreds of workers to help with search and rescue after 9/11,” as Reclaim The Net wrote. Posobiec did not claim that Trump brought or paid workers, only that he was there, as Reclaim The Net noted.
Conservatives are under attack. Contact Facebook headquarters at (650) 308-7300 and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
