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On 30 March 2016, the web site Source Planet published an article reporting that an anonymous Facebook operative had disclosed the existence of a conspiracy at the social network to block, ban, or suspend the posting of content or hashtags (including the ubiquitous #FeelTheBern) related to Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders: According to the anonymous writer, he reported the glitch to Facebook, and not long afterwards a Facebook employee purportedly contacted the author via a proxy e-mail address to explain that the glitch was in fact part of a suppressive conspiracy on the part of Facebook to bury anything related to Bernie Sanders: According to the writer, the anonymous Facebook employee who contacted him decided to start informing random users of the alleged ban on posting Sanders material after media outlets refused to report on his claims because they are scared to post something without having a face to back it up with. However, this excuse rings hollow, as the use of anonymous or unnamed sources is common in the news media — some of the biggest scoops in media history (such as the Watergate scandal) began with off-the-record sources. Not surprisingly, the web site on which the claim was published employs no verification techniques for their reporters. Their About page explains that their only standard for publication is that articles are not plagiarized: It would be difficult to examine such a claim without pointing out that the sheer number of posts and hashtags about Bernie Sanders is vast enough that it has been the subject of at least two late-night comedy program jokes. For example, the Daily Show's Trevor Noah quipped of Sanders' supporters: Saturday Night Live also ribbed Sanders' supporters in the same fashion on 12 March 2016, during a segment involving actor Larry David as Sanders (at roughly the 2:35 mark below) in which David joked: The comments section of the Bernie ban article was littered with users reporting similar incidents that were not directly related to the political nature of the material they were posting. Some described potential overuse of Facebook's content and publishing functions as missteps that could lead to temporary user restrictions (such as anti-spam measures): In others instances, users described interpersonal conflicts for which they might have been reported by other users for harassment: Others made unrelated (and some anti-Semitic) inferences: And some believed they'd been personally singled out by Hillary Clinton's campaign for silencing, not suspecting Facebook as a culprit: In most instances, the users clearly described infractions that had nothing to do with Bernie Sanders or related hashtags. Those reports were likely linked to efforts to reach out to voters en masse using Facebook (for processes such as Facebanking, a documented occasional block trigger): Among those commenters were many more who pointed out they freely and frequently shared Sanders-related content or hashtags, that their own feeds were full of Sanders-related posts, and that scenarios described often fell afoul of Facebook's general, pre-existing rules. We contacted Facebook to ask about the putative Bernie Sanders ban, and they told us: Anyone with a Facebook profile and an interest in American politics could probably attest to references to Bernie Sanders appearing frequently in their newsfeeds.
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