Georgia man sues Facebook over banning his account and wins, but his fight isn't over



A Georgia man successfully sued Facebook after his account was permanently banned for allegedly violating the social media network’s child exploitation rules.

“I woke up one Sunday morning, I tapped on my Facebook icon, and I was locked out," Jason Crawford told WAGA this week.

Crawford said the only explanation for his Facebook account being terminated was a quick pop-up message that said he had violated the platform's child exploitation standards.

"It just gave me the briefest snapshot of saying that I had violated their standards on child sexual exploitation," he said. "And then it went away."

Crawford admitted that his account had been suspended in the past over posts about politics. However, he said that he had not done anything that would violate the child exploitation rules.

"I had, I don’t even know how you quantify it, pictures, videos, posts that, you know, come up as memories that I like to look at from time to time. You know, all that kind of stuff that I wasn’t willing to let a bunch of bullies take away from me for no reason," he explained.

Crawford wanted to clear his name and get his Facebook page back. He attempted to contact Facebook, but found it impossible.

He said, "It was as if I didn’t exist and Facebook was operated by a bunch of ghosts or something."

"What I learned is the way you submit your appeal, or whatever, is through your own profile, your own account," he told the Atlanta station. "If you don't have an account, you have no way of submitting it, so it’s like a dog chasing its tail."

Crawford, who is a lawyer, launched a lawsuit against Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms in August 2022. In the complaint, Crawford accused the tech giant of being "negligent" for banning him from the social media platform "based on a violation that did not occur."

Crawford said he was also banned from Instagram and WhatsApp – which are both owned by Meta Platforms.

Meta Platforms allegedly did not respond to the lawsuit, and the judge ruled in favor of Crawford.

"Defendant was properly served with process in this action in according with Georgia law. … Defendant has failed to respond thereto as required by law; this action has automatically become in default; Defendant has failed to open the default as a matter of right within 15 days of the day of each Defendant’s default; and default judgment is demanded against Defendant," the ruling reads, according to BizPac Review.

“Plaintiff’s injuries and damages, as hereinabove described, were directly and proximately caused by the negligence of Defendant. The Court concludes that Plaintiff has endured great mental pain since Facebook unjustifiably and unreasonably shut down his account and that his pain and suffering will likely continue. The Court further concludes that Plaintiff is entitled to just and adequate compensation for his injuries and for his past and future damages," the ruling states.

The judge ordered Meta Platforms to pay $50,000 to Crawford.

Crawford said that Facebook finally restored his account. "I felt a little bit vindicated, and they activated my account again," he said.

A Facebook attorney allegedly told Crawford that his account had been hacked.

However, Crawford said that Meta Platforms has not paid him a dime yet. "Every step of the way, Facebook is choosing not to do the right thing," Crawford declared.

"It feels like a poke in the eye, and it feels like they're continuing to poke in the eye," he said. "Poke the local court system in the eye. Poke me in the eye. Poke other users in the eye, and it’s time that they at least respect our legal system."

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox 5 Atlanta.

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Facebook should not have the power to ban Donald Trump says ... Elizabeth Warren



The Facebook oversight board's ruling this week upholding the social media platform's decision to kick President Donald Trump off his Facebook and Instagram accounts elicited cheers from anti-Trump voices across the U.S. — especially the former president's left-wing critics.

But one notorious Trump-hating leftist wasn't so thrilled about the media giant's move: Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Instead, Warren ripped the company for its move — despite the fact that she is glad the former president is no longer on Facebook and considers him to be a "real danger."

What did she say?

The woman Trump loved to taunt with the moniker "Pocahontas" appeared on Cheddar News following the Wednesday announcement and told the outlet that it was not OK for the platform to ban Trump and that the move was just one more example that Facebook has too much power.

"I'm glad that he's not on Facebook," Warren said. "I think that he poses a real danger. But I don't think that Facebook ought to have this kind of power."

What would the left-wing lawmaker like to see happen to Facebook and other tech giants? Like Republican Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), she wants the government to break them up.

"We need to break up these giant tech companies," Warren declared. "And Facebook is one of them."

She said she doesn't like that Facebook kills competition — and not just with private business. They're competing with the all-powerful U.S. government.

"They are crushing competition, and in cases like Facebook, they're acting like they're bigger than government," Warren stated.

"The group that made this decision calls itself 'the Supreme Court,'" she added, pointing to the oversight board. "They are not the Supreme Court, they're part of a private company. They need to be broken up."

"We need a chance for competition to flourish here, and we need a chance to have some power that balances out what these giants are up to," Warren said without clarifying whether she was talking about balancing competition and power for private enterprise or the government.

Not Warren's first objection to a Trump ban

Back on Oct. 2, 2019, a reporter asked Warren, who was campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, whether Trump should be banned from Twitter.

The senator responded, laughing, "No."

And during the Oct. 15, 2019, Democratic presidential nomination debate, then-Sen. Kamala Harris called on Twitter to ban Trump from its platform.

The future vice president attempted to pressure Warren into backing her up the declaration, but Warren wasn't having it.

From NBC News:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren refused to take Sen. Kamala Harris' bait when she asked at the debate Tuesday night that Warren join her in calling for Twitter to suspend President Donald Trump from the social media platform.

“I don't just want to push Trump off Twitter, I want to push him out of the White House," Warren said at the Ohio debate.

(H/T: Mediaite)

PatrioticMe owner says response after Facebook ban shows 'patriotism is alive and well'



Last November, Facebook permanently banned advertisements from online retailer PatrioticMe without explaining how the retailer's patriotic clothing or ads violated its terms of service. But since the ban, PatrioticMe owner LeeAnn Miller wants America to know that the outpouring of support her business received has restored her faith in the American people.

"Patriotism is alive and well," Miller, 50, told TheBlaze in an interview Monday describing how her business turned around since she went public with her story.

PatrioticMe is a start-up online retailer that sells patriotic apparel: T-shirts, sweaters, hoodies, and hats in red, white, and blue colors or adorned with the American flag, among other products. A portion of every sale made on its website is donated to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, a charity that provides mortgage-free smart homes to veterans or first responders with catastrophic injuries suffered in the line of duty or to gold star families with surviving spouses and young children.

Shortly after the 2020 election, Miller was notified by Facebook that advertisements for her products violated the company's terms of service and advertising policies. Subsequently, PatrioticMe was permanently banned from advertising on Facebook, causing PatrioticMe to lose about 94% of the traffic to its website. After TheBlaze reported Miller's story, she also told her story on Fox News to host Shannon Bream and to BlazeTV host Glenn Beck on the radio.

She said Monday that the response her business felt was immediate.

"The first day of that article, my phone was literally dinging nonstop," Miller told TheBlaze. "My phone started ringing off the hook with tremendous support from Americans all over the country. 'Keep doing what you're doing.' 'Don't give up.' 'We're praying for you.' 'This is great.' 'We love your products.'"

On the day TheBlaze's article was published, 2218 orders were placed on PatrioticMe's website. Since then, Miller said sales have steadily continued, with over 8,000 orders placed and her products being shipped nationwide.

But the support was more than just kind words or even increased sales. Miller said that the owner of a billboard on Interstate 75 in Tennessee contacted her and offered to put up a billboard for PatrioticMe free of charge. A graphic artist also got in touch with PatrioticMe and offered to design some new T-shirts for free as well. One customer even purchased $1,000 worth of t-shirts and asked that all of the proceeds be donated directly to Tunnel to Towers.

"If you look a lot at social media or watch a lot of the news, you know, it's all about how we're divided, and there's so much fighting back and forth among friends on Facebook," said Miller. "But I have been pleasantly overwhelmed with such support from so many patriotic people across the country. It's just been great. It's been heartwarming."

PatrioticMe is still banned from advertising on Facebook, but Miller said that because of her supporters she doesn't need Facebook's advertising and wouldn't pay for it even if she were allowed to.

"I'm very excited about what the future holds," Miller said. She enthusiastically thanked all of her customers for their support.

"I feel like I have thousands of new friends across the country. Let's just all keep patriotism and well."

Exclusive: Facebook permanently bans retailer PatrioticMe from advertising pro-America products



LeeAnn Miller would like an explanation from Facebook after the ad account for her business was disabled by the tech giant seemingly for no other reason than being patriotic.

Miller, 50, is a wife, mother, and a business owner. In 2019, when her youngest son, Hollis, started college, she decided that after spending many wonderful years as a stay-at-home mom raising children, she would like to get back to work and help contribute to the financial stability of her family. That year, Miller had an idea. Holding the conviction that there is no better place on Earth than the United States, and desiring to give back to her country, she founded PatrioticMe, an online retailer that sells various clothing items.

"It took about a year to get things exactly the way I wanted them, the products and the website," Miller told TheBlaze in an interview.

The apparel sold by PatrioticMe has, well, an obvious patriotic flair. These are shirts adorned with red, white, and blue or an outline of the United States. Hoodies with the American flag. Hats you could proudly wear to your Fourth of July cookout and every other day too, just because you love America. And the business, which launched on Sept. 11, 2020, to honor the heroic American first responders of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, was a success at first.

"I had been a stay-at-home mom for years, and I was glad to be back in the workforce doing a little something to contribute to my family's income and future," Miller said. "I believe in my product, I have a great product, I love the shirts, they're comfortable. We get great reviews on them from the people who have bought them. And I really felt like I was doing something good for the country, to promote patriotism."

A portion of every sale is donated to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, a charity founded to honor the sacrifice of New York City firefighter Stephen Siller, who gave his life to save others as a first responder on Sept. 11, 2001. Tunnel to Towers provides mortgage-free smart homes to veterans or first responders with catastrophic injuries suffered in the line of duty or to gold star families with surviving spouses and young children.

"I chose from the very beginning not to be partisan, at all," she explained, noting that her products are for every American. "I feel like that is so important. I want everybody to be patriotic."

The trouble with Facebook began the day after the election.

Miller, in partnership with Quantify, a business development firm, had advertised her products on Facebook. PatrioticMe's advertisement was simple. It was made to look like a Facebook post with text before pictures featuring models wearing items for sale.

The text stated:

Loving your country shouldn't be hidden.

Check out our new line of long sleeve shirts!

We have an attractive range of patriotic clothes to show that love off! 10% off on your order for a limited time!

Every time you purchase, We donate a portion of it to the tunnel to the tower foundation.

Miller provided a screenshot of her advertisement to TheBlaze:

Image provided by LeeAnn Miller

On Nov. 4, 2020, she received an email from the Facebook Ads Team informing her that her advertisements did not comply with Facebook's advertising policies or other standards.

"Ad Account Disabled for Policy Violation," declared the subject line of the email, which was provided to TheBlaze.

"It appears your ad account was used to create one or more ads that don't comply with our Advertising Policies or other standards," the email stated.

"Our policies and standards help keep Facebook safe and welcoming for everyone. We use either technology or a review team to remove anything that doesn't comply with our policies or standards as quickly as possible," Facebook told Miller.

Instead of providing her with guidance as to which policies PatrioticMe's ad violated, the email provided Miller with a link to the page outlining the entirety of Facebook's advertising policies. She was also given two options: To take an "e-learning Blueprint course" called "Ad Policies for Content, Creative, and Targeting" to learn about the entirety of Facebook's advertising policies, or to request a review of her ad account if she believed it shouldn't be disabled.

The notice came as a shock.

"My shirts say, 'U.S.A', or 'America', or have the flag or outline the country. They're all very benign," Miller said.

Believing her advertisements were disabled in error, she contacted Facebook requesting a review of PatrioticMe's account that very day. In response, she received a second email from Facebook, nearly identical to the first. After three requests for review, the Facebook Ads Team sent Miller a final notice on Nov. 24 that her restricted account would not be re-enabled.

"All ad accounts are evaluated for policy compliance and quality of ad content. Due to your ad account consistently promoting ads that don't comply with our Advertising Policies or other standards, the ad account has been disabled," the Facebook Ads Team told her.

Particularly frustrating for Miller is that throughout the review process, she was unable to speak with a live human being even once about why her ads were disabled.

"They never give anything other than kind of a canned response," Miller told TheBlaze.

"We've never been able to get in touch with a live human. I have tried, and Quantify has tried on my behalf, and we have never been able to talk to a live human being about the problem and what we can do to fix it."

Facebook's final decision is that PatrioticMe can no longer advertise with its ad account and all of its advertisements and assets on Facebook will remain disabled.

It's a decision that Miller said has cost PatrioticMe 94% of its traffic.

"I've hardly had any sales" since the ban, Miller explained. "What Facebook gave me the ability to do was to promote my business to people that I don't know around the country, what I would call an 'organic sale,' somebody that saw my product, liked my product, and bought it and did not have a personal relationship with me."

Without Facebook ads, PatrioticMe is having trouble reaching out beyond Miller's immediate friends and family.

Upon review of Facebook's advertisements policy and community standards, TheBlaze could not identify what content in Miller's ad would violate either set of its policies. TheBlaze reached out to Facebook for clarification and for comment, but the company did not respond before this article was published.

Asked why she thinks her ads were disabled, Miller could only speculate that Facebook took issue with her products' patriotic message.

"I have to believe that in the current climate they were taken down because a lot of people think patriotism is bad. A lot of people think the American flag scares people. It's really hard for me to understand, but the only thing I really have to go on is what that first email said, that I violated the policy of, you know, Facebook providing a safe and welcoming environment," she suggested.

"And to me, that's absurd, that anybody in this country, even people that immigrate here, they come here for what that flag stands for: Freedom and prosperity, and everything that that flag has to offer, and that's what that flag represents to me anyway. And it's really hard for me to imagine that it scares people or makes people feel unwelcome."

Miller wishes that a live human being representing Facebook would communicate with her business and say specifically what is wrong with her ads.

"Please show me the ads that are offensive and please tell me specifically what is offensive about them, and what would meet your community standards. What would I need to do to change my ads to make them acceptable for Facebook?"

"You can report Facebook ads if you think they are offensive. So I'm not really sure if somebody reported my ad, or if some bot picked it up and flagged it, or if an employee of Facebook did that," she added.

For now, Miller says she is working with her business development partner Quantify to find new ways to advertise and expand PatrioticMe's reach. But she still wonders why Facebook has rejected her business

"Here I am willing to pay them money to run ads, have they gotten so big that they don't even care about making money?"

JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images

Facebook purge of Trump supporters begins!



Facebook removed the popular, anti-Democratic Party "WalkAway" page from its platform Friday, according to a tweet from WalkAway founder Brandon Straka.

WalkAway is a grass-roots campaign that shares stories from those who "can no longer accept the current ideology of liberalism and what the Democratic Party has become." Straka also was a front-line figure in the battle — following President Donald Trump's 2020 election loss — to get out the vote for Tuesday's runoff election in Georgia. But both Democratic candidates took the races, and because of that Democrats will control the U.S. Senate.

What are the details?

Straka's tweet about Facebook's action read, "FACEBOOK has removed the #WalkAway Campaign and has BANNED ME and EVERY MEMBER of my team!!! Over half a million people in #WalkAway with hundreds of thousands of testimonial videos and stories is GONE. Facebook has banned everything related to #WalkAway."

🚨🚨🚨FACEBOOK has removed the #WalkAway Campaign and has BANNED ME and EVERY MEMBER of my team!!! Over half a millio… https://t.co/DrUFXnpF7P
— Brandon Straka (@Brandon Straka)1610125959.0

Straka also posted images of notifications he said were from Facebook telling him WalkAway's account was "disabled" on Friday "for violating our Terms of Use" and that pages "that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed. We also take down Pages that attack an individual or group, or that are set up by an unauthorized individual. If your page was removed for any of the above reasons, it will not be reinstated. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in the permanent loss of your account."

It isn't clear what exactly triggered the action. Neither Facebook nor Straka immediately responded Friday to TheBlaze's request for comment and additional details.

'Absolute mayhem!!'

"I have a dozen paid employees. I have dozens of volunteers. ALL BANNED at the same time today. Absolute mayhem!!" he noted in a different Twitter post. "Is this the unity and healing of Joe Biden's America??? This is horrifying."

Straka asked for assistance from Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in the wake of the WalkAway ban, saying "this is only the beginning of a total conservative shutdown if we don't get help."

Straka also said he'll be appearing on Laura Ingraham's Fox News program Friday night to discuss the Facebook ban: "My team and I are working at lightning speed to salvage this today. PLEASE tune in tonight to see how you can help us rebuild."

Anything else?

Straka told the Post Millennial that WalkAway is reforming on clouthub.com and that followers can go to the group's website and sign up for the email list.

A number of prominent social media conservatives have reported steep drops in their follower counts since the siege at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, while others have seen their accounts banned or suspended.

Here's a Thursday video of Straka commenting on the events this week in Washington, D.C.:

Yesterday in DC/The Past 9 Weeks/The Future of Conservatismyoutu.be