Facebook’s thin line between policing coronavirus information and suppressing political dissent on coronavirus policy has been officially crossed.

New Jersey residents hoping to emulate anti-‘stay at home‘ protests in other states including Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Utah, Wyoming and Virginia were thrown a curveball on Thursday when Facebook shut down their event page.

The “Open New Jersey” rally – planned for Tuesday, April 28th at the Trenton War Memorial – was informed by Facebook that its event page violated the social media platform’s community standards. Specifically, Facebook warned that it was “coordinating harm and promoting crime.”

New Jersey, like a number of blue states, has criminalized political protest.

A woman who helped organize protests against New Jersey’s coronavirus-driven stay-at-home orders is now facing charges for violating those orders, authorities said.

Kim Pagan, of Toms River, allegedly helped organize the small crowds that gathered in Trenton Friday to protest Gov. Phil Murphy’s order essentially shutting down the state due to the virus — which has infected nearly 80,000 people and killed almost 4,000 in just six weeks.

A video posted to Facebook by Central Jersey Libertarians shows police writing summonses to honking and shouting protesters in parked cars. One woman can be heard to yell “we have the right to peacefully protest!” 

Apparently not.

It’s not just that New Jersey is violating the Constitution. Facebook is openly (no more games about spamming or violating promotional rules) suppressing protest pages.

For the full 1984 treatment.

Shortly before the page was shut down, anyone viewing the page was prompted to review social distancing guidelines.

I’ve been going on about this for years. I’m sure regular readers are sick and tried of it, but if we don’t break up the big dot coms, Google and Facebook in particular, the Bill of Rights will become a dead letter document.

This should be yet another reminder.

Black Lives Matter doesn’t have to deal with this when it comes to their protests. Dot coms are collecting and sharing data with the authorities. They’re treating political dissent on coronavirus policy as a crime and using tracking to push propaganda to users.

This is no longer just about conservative media and fact checking. This is not about coronavirus hoaxes.

Facebook is treating people who want to open up their state, a legitimate policy difference, as committing a crime.

This is a huge problem when the dot com monopoly controls 80% of social traffic.

The only reason that Democrats have been able to do what they do is because the big dot coms are behind them. And if you think this is bad, wait until the election is at stake.