A children’s book publisher who promotes biographies about Ronald Reagan, Thomas Sowell and Amy Coney Barrett has just been ridiculously banned from advertising on Facebook because of “Low Quality or Disruptive Content”:
FOX BUSINESS – Facebook has “permanently disabled” the ads account of a conservative children’s book publisher, claiming that Heroes of Liberty – which has published books about Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, former President Ronald Reagan and author Thomas Sowell – violated the company’s rules against “Low Quality or Disruptive Content.” Facebook originally locked the ads account on Dec. 23, and after Heroes of Liberty appealed the ruling, the company permanently disabled the account.
“The question is: is a children’s biography of Ronald Reagan no longer permissible on Facebook? We don’t know. But apparently promoting one may well kill a business,” Heroes of Liberty editor and board member Bethany Mandel told FOX Business on Sunday.
“We began investing in Facebook four months before we launched our first book,” she added. “We invested most of our marketing budget on the platform, and now our budget (the money we’ve already spent), as well as our assets and data are gone. Marketing-wise we are back in square one, financially it’s even more challenging.”
Mandel confirmed that the ads account remained disabled. She hesitated to describe the move as an example of anti-conservative bias on the part of Facebook.
“We are not in politics, we are in the business of creating beautiful stories about great people that will entertain children and give them life lessons,” she said. “To cancel children’s books because they celebrate American values that 90% of Americans believe in isn’t even anti-conservative bias, it’s anti-American. Pure madness.”
“This ad account, its ads and some of its advertising assets are disabled because it didn’t comply with our policy on Low Quality or Disruptive Content,” Facebook said in a message disabling the account on Dec. 23.
After Heroes of Liberty appealed, Facebook sent another message. “After a final review of this ad account, we confirmed it didn’t comply with our Advertising Policies or other standards,” the message reads. “You can no longer advertise with this ad account and its ads and assets will remain disabled. This is our final decision.”
Here’s more from Bethany Mandel:
Thread: My new children's book publishing company, @HeroesOfLiberty, was dealt a real blow going into the New Year, when we were banned by Facebook. We’re a new literary start-up that publishes quality illustrated biographies of great Americans. https://t.co/V4tTEfQbAC
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) January 3, 2022
Our books are designed to inspire children. We invested much of our seed capital in building our brand on Facebook. But Facebook has now shut down our advertising account. The official reason? “Disruptive Content.” pic.twitter.com/7i0hBBL3kd
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) January 3, 2022
Work began work on the books in the summer of 2019. We opened shop on November 9th, and officially launched on November 14th.
Long before our official launch–back in July–we started investing considerable resources into building our brand on Facebook.
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) January 3, 2022
This is an example of one of our ads: pic.twitter.com/S8qO7Fxsx8
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) January 3, 2022
We had a number of negative comments on the posts and we think they reported our content. They were triggered by a children's book that portrays Ronald Reagan as a hero. But this was not their decision. It was Facebook’s decision, they went along with them it seems. pic.twitter.com/KbCWWJ8Smh
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) January 3, 2022
When Facebook shut down our account, we lost all the data that we carefully gathered for the last six months.
We can't communicate with the audience that we built. Our ad account is permanently disabled. The consequences to our business could be devastating.
— Bethany S. Mandel (@bethanyshondark) January 3, 2022
This is what truly pisses me off about Facebook. Companies like Bethany’s spend tons of money on expensive advertising, gathering data and targeting groups of people who might buy their books, only for Facebook to cut them off over some bogus reason without offering them a single red cent of their money back in a refund. It’s evil!
There is absolutely nothing controversial about these ads or these books; they are simply biographies of great conservatives for children. Facebook deserves to be sued over this and I’d love it if Heroes of Liberty took them to court and sued the daylights out of them.