Facebook 'permanently' locks account of conservative children's book publisher
Facebook has "permanently disabled" the ads account of a conservative children's book publisher, claiming that Heroes of Liberty – which has published books about Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, former President Ronald Reagan and author Thomas Sowell – violated the company's rules against "Low Quality or Disruptive Content." Facebook originally locked the ads account on Dec. 23, and after Heroes of Liberty appealed the ruling, the company permanently disabled the account.
"The question is: is a children's biography of Ronald Reagan no longer permissible on Facebook? We don’t know. But apparently promoting one may well kill a business," Heroes of Liberty editor and board member Bethany Mandel told FOX Business on Sunday.
"We began investing in Facebook four months before we launched our first book," she added. "We invested most of our marketing budget on the platform, and now our budget (the money we’ve already spent), as well as our assets and data are gone. Marketing-wise we are back in square one, financially it's even more challenging."
Mandel confirmed that the ads account remained disabled. She hesitated to describe the move as an example of anti-conservative bias on the part of Facebook.
"We are not in politics, we are in the business of creating beautiful stories about great people that will entertain children and give them life lessons," she said. "To cancel children's books because they celebrate American values that 90% of Americans believe in isn’t even anti-conservative bias, it's anti-American. Pure madness."
"This ad account, its ads and some of its advertising assets are disabled because it didn't comply with our policy on Low Quality or Disruptive Content," Facebook said in a message disabling the account on Dec. 23.
After Heroes of Liberty appealed, Facebook sent another message. "After a final review of this ad account, we confirmed it didn't comply with our Advertising Policies or other standards," the message reads. "You can no longer advertise with this ad account and its ads and assets will remain disabled. This is our final decision."
Facebook did not respond to FOX Business' request for comment.
Heroes of Liberty aims to produce high-quality children's books promoting American values. The publisher opened shop on Nov. 9 and officially launched on Nov. 14. Back in July, it began investing resources to build a brand on Facebook.
Heroes of Liberty used the ads account to promote and sell the books. During its last month on the platform – between Nov. 23 and Dec. 23 – the account promoted 68 ads, and 95.2% of the money spent on ads in this period went to ads that were ranked "average" or "above average" in Facebook's quality score. Only three ads were rated below "average," according to Heroes of Liberty.
Mandel suggested that Facebook caved to a vocal minority of users who claimed that Heroes of Liberty was disruptive.
"There was a small but noisy group of responders to our ads who didn't like the fact we published books about Ronald Reagan, Thomas Sowell and Amy Coney Barret; people we called Heroes of Liberty," she told FOX Business. "They made nasty comments, especially about Reagan, and about us for publishing these books and even shared their desire to burn them."
"It's very likely those same people reported to Facebook that our content is disturbing, because it doesn't sit well with their radical worldview," Mandel said. "These are the same people who riot and take down statues of our founding fathers in the real world, and they want to strip us of our ability to honor our Heroes in the digital sphere and in children's books."
"Our problem is that it seems that Facebook went with the mob judgment call and not with common sense," Mandel added.
While the loss of the Facebook ads platform will cost Heroes of Liberty, Mandel laid out a path forward. She said that the publisher has "received a warm welcome, sold tens of thousands of books and learned that many Americans are looking for a wholesome alternative to the current contemporary woke children's literature."
"We learned our lesson, and won't risk building our business relying on the whims of Big Tech again," she added. "We are very happy with our initial decision to create a subscription model that will allow us to create a more meaningful one-on-one connection with families that can't be disrupted by a censor."
