Facebook: Gov’s page was not taken down because of content

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Facebook briefly took down Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s campaign page Tuesday morning, indicating it had been mistakenly flagged as an imposter account, though the governor suggested the move was prompted by her criticism of President Joe Biden’s vaccination mandate.

Ivey, a Republican, cited her staunch opposition to the Democratic president’s vaccine push. But Facebook indicated that was not the case.

“Facebook banned my campaign page this morning. We fought back and won. Evidently, they’re upset that I said I’m standing in the way of President Biden to protect Alabamians from this outrageous overreach by the federal government,” Ivey said in a statement posted on social media. The dispute involved Ivey’s campaign page and not her gubernatorial account. Ivey is running for re-election in 2022.

Ivey added that “if big tech thinks they can silence us and that I won’t fight back, then honey, they haven’t met me. They have another thing coming. I’m not backing down. I never will. We’re fighting Washington. We’ll fight big tech too.” Ivey said.

However, Facebook indicated the content on Ivey’s page played no role.

“Earlier today, the governor’s campaign page was mistakenly restricted for less than an hour for reasons unrelated to any posted content. When we learned of our mistake, the page was quickly restored,” a Facebook company spokeswoman wrote in an email.

The tech giant indicated the campaign page had been mistakenly flagged as an imposter account.

The governor’s campaign responded with a statement calling that a “nonsense excuse.” It added that Facebook first said it was unpublishing the page because of “harassment and bullying” and the campaign fought to get it restored.

Ivey has strongly encouraged peopled to get vaccinated against COVID-19, even going as far to say, “it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks” for a spike in COVID-19 cases. But Ivey is also among Republican leaders nationwide who have vowed resistance to Biden’s mandate. Biden is mandating all employers with more than 100 workers require their employees to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans. Another 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid also will have to be vaccinated.