Facebook Rejects Police ‘Officer of the Year’ Tribute

In yet another abuse of the power held by Facebook over what the people are allowed to see and share online, the social media giant has been shown to have taken its censorship another step further in the wrong direction by blocking an ad paying tribute to a Police officer who was awarded ‘Officer of the Year’ for his accomplishments on duty. 

Happening in Illinois, the Association of Chiefs of Police awarded Officer Jeffery Bieber of East Peoria ‘Officer of the Year’ back in July. Despite efforts to share the celebration of the decision online through advertising on Facebook, a report from Fox News revealed that the Police association was denied the right to share the story on its platform. 

When the group attempted to ‘boost’ a post shared about the Police officer, Facebook denied the request. Back in July, Facebook sent the organization a response saying that, “This ad content has been correctly disapproved for violation of Facebook Advertising Policies and Guidelines. As per policy: Your ad may have been rejected because it mentions politicians or is about sensitive social issues that could influence public opinion, how people vote and may impact the outcome of an election or pending legislation.”

This is absurd. The ad has nothing to do with politics, elections or pending legislation. The only potential violation here, despite the fact that all of this from any angle is censorship, is that something like this could influence public opinion. In this case, it would possibly be influencing public opinion to gain respect and appreciation for the police in general and specifically for the work of a public servant who was being awarded for doing an actually good job. How could this possibly be a bad thing in the United States of America? Possibly, again, because Facebook would rather its users have the false narrative forced into their minds that police are the bad guys now and should not be allowed to see and share any good that they do. Again, to me, this is absurd.

Ed Wojcicki, executive director of the Association of Chiefs of Police, spoke with the new paper called The Journal Star of Peoria, where he stated that, “The way we see it is, Facebook thinks it’s wrong to honor a brave police officer who suffered serious wounds while protecting his central Illinois city. How is that remotely political?”

Wojcicki continued to say that, “Our press release mentioned no politicians and has nothing to do with any election or pending legislation. For Facebook to suggest that seems like a huge stretch and could be a signal that it wants to block good news about Police.”

The Association of Chiefs of Police is currently running a petition campaign on change.org in hopes to get Facebook to reverse its decision to reject the police officer of the year tribute.

Personally, as Facebook continues its censorship across the spectrum of thought in an attempt to control the free thought of Americans and humans world wide, I find myself personally caring less and less what kind of power Facebook believes it has. Yes, it can make choices that do affect the public, but I believe people are losing and will continue to lose any respect or belief in the viability of the entire platform in itself.

At some point, everyone, or at least all who care, will just log off. Here’s to hoping that Facebook fades to eventual irrelevance, much like Myspace in the past. And here’s to hoping that another platform doesn’t replace it. Maybe humanity would be better off just living real life and sharing information human to human again. That seems to be what it might take to get humanity back on the right track away from all of this nonsense.