Defensionem: Want to keep in touch with us? Follow the guide! It is no secret that popular social media platforms have taken an increasingly dim /aggresive stance against what they consider to be against their own sets of Community Standards. Said community standards are often vague or modified without prior warning.
As these community standards reflect an increasingly hostile and politically correct take on many topics, it regularly makes it difficult for pages such as Defensionem to remain compliant. Topics such as military humour (“nudity”), history (“swastika”/”nazism”), war reporting (“graphic content”) and news reporting (“terror propaganda”/”dangerous organisations”) means we are somehow always at the mercy of Facebook’s censorship. Articles posted years ago can sometimes be flagged up by FB bots and threaten this page with punishment going as far as being unpublished. It happened to our main Defensionem page last December and it took us several weeks to sort the problem out! It also came without any warning whatsoever.
We tried our best to stay below Facebook’s radar. We always strive to report on conflicts and other events in a neutral fashion. We also try our best to steer clear of politics. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough. Defensionem published a couple of pictures of the storming of the US Capitole on January the 6th. We did not add any captions or comments. We simply copied and pasted pictures already present in mainstream media. Facebook took those pictures as a show of Conservative support and our page (and one of our admins) received three separate strikes inside of 48 hours for two distinct pictures showing the invasion of the Capitole and what was going on inside the building (one picture was flagged twice!).
Another one of our admins published an update on the situation in CAR. Facebook flagged this update as “Hate Speech.” The page had just received 4 strikes inside of 4 days. Facebook unpublished it. Just like that, we lost 4 years of hard work and a page with 60k+ fans (72k followers). The post flagged as “hate speech” is displayed below so you can all judge for yourselves.
Saying that we are devastated is an understatement. We are also angry. There is currently no option to speak to somebody at Facebook HQ or appeal against the decision.
What really happened? Well, Facebook is automatically moderated. Algorithms, bots, A.I., all searching FB’s servers for keywords and pictures. There is no human intervention. And it looks like Facebook’s A.I. cannot distinguish between the neutral reporting of an event and a show of support. Facebook bots cannot distinguish sarcasm or irony and they do not comprehend humour. A keyword is a keyword. If said keyword is detected, the post will be banned regardless of context. Same for pictures.
The unique political situation in the US has polarised opinions and social madia platforms seem to have taken upon themselves to heavily moderate / censor (sometimes preemptively) anything closely or loosely related to Conservatism. As a “gun/military” page, it seems we have found ourselves in the censorship crossfire, despite having no political affiliations and no stakes in the American domestic political game. A fair few pages, bloggers and writers are finding themselves in the same position as us.
What’s next for us? Well, we are trying to rebuild on the ruins of this mess. we have created a new Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/defensionemthewarbible) but it is difficult for us to advertise for it and rebuild our audience. Especially as two of our admins now have restricted accounts (one of them for 60 days)! We have therefore decided to diversify where we are present, in order to circumvent any more of this blind censorship.
Follow us on this website! https://www.Defensionem.com is our safe haven. It is at present time the home of most of our in-depth full-size articles. However, we are currently migrating our short Facebook posts to this platform too. Remember, this website is always accessible! Furthermore, you can now opt to subscribe to this website. A subscription will give you access to our VIP area, with exclusive articles, early access to others as well as access to some of our source / research material and published books in PDF format!
Why not like our old page? Defensionem https://www.facebook.com/defensionem was our original page up until 2017. However, the old page is still there and still published.
Have you heard of our Defensionem The Warbible group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1549230588572330/)? If you want to post pictures, links and discuss any topics with the Defensionem admins, this is the place to go! We also post some of our source materials there. Having you join this group would give us one more channel to keep in touch with our fanbase.
Are you a fan of Twitter? Fear not! We are on Twitter, also: https://twitter.com/defensionem
Yes, we are also present on VK: https://vk.com/club201723400
We have established a foothold on MeWe: https://mewe.com/group/60057dc29b40c0674577a692
Obviously, we also publish our content on Telegram! https://t.me/defensionem
Finally, we also have a presence on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/DefensionemWB/
Every single one of our articles is published on all those platforms at once!
The safest way for you to keep in touch with us is to subscribe to our website. Failing that, we would advise you to join our new page on Facebook as well as pick an alternative social media platform to stay connected with us regardless of circumstances on FB.
A big thank you to all our loyal followers!
