Facebook has never been known for being friendly to conservatives, but it seems the social media giant has become even less friendly for those who fall to the right of Josef Stalin. A number of conservatives have complained bitterly that the site is targeting them because of their political views.
As a result, some have started Facebook-like alternatives to give conservatives a safe place to connect and share information, free of the nagging, security warnings and constant bans.
Scott Rohter, a grassroots conservative who writes when he can, started a site called WePluribUS. Rohter told Examiner that Facebook became so punitive he couldn’t share his work without having to endure multiple security warnings.
Like many grassroots conservative bloggers, he relies heavily on Facebook to spread his message.
“All it takes is for someone to report you to ‘daddy Zuckerberg’ and you’re out,” he said.
Another site, Tea Party Community, is set to officially launch on Saturday, although it has been online for a while. Like WePluribUS, Tea Party Community was founded as a result of the treatment conservatives have received at the hands of Facebook.
“Most of us are subjected to censorship on Facebook, co-founder Ken Crow told Fox News’ Todd Starnes. “I’ve been suspended there as have many of my friends. You also absorb a lot of abuse from liberals.”
Crow, like many conservatives on Facebook, believes the social media giant — now with over 900 million users — is targeting them because of their political posts which are frequently critical of Obama and liberal Democrats.
“There’s absolutely no question in my mind,” he said.
“As many as 100 Facebook users contacted Fox News with complaints that the social networking site had either removed conservative content or blocked them for posting conservative content,” Starnes wrote.
A number of conservatives have expressed the same to this writer as well.
One 68-year-old Facebook user told Examiner in an email that she was blocked from posting after sharing a video link to just six pages.
“I don’t know who to turn to,” she said, adding that her health prevented her from participating with local conservative groups.
Recently, Facebook targeted the fan page for “Chicks on the Right,” but backtracked and apologized when the situation was reported by Fox News.
But most conservatives who run pages on Facebook do not get the coverage Weaver got, and as a result, are frequent targets of liberal “trolls” who seek to silence them any way they can.
“Had we not gotten exposure on Fox News, we’d be off line right now,” said Amy Jo Clark, one of the page administrators. “Some of the smaller sites are getting pinged and hit by these liberal trolls and there’s no one they can talk to,” she added.
Worse yet, Facebook allows sites like “I hate it when I wake up and Sarah Palin is still alive” while blocking or banning conservative sites, causing many to believe the social media site has a double standard with regard to political content.
In April 2011, one poster at the site, a 54-year-old Marine veteran, expressed a desire to see Palin dead.
“PS Sarah Palin is still breathing which distresses me,” wrote Mark Hamblett.
The page remains live, despite a number of complaints to Facebook.
During the general election, Facebook allowed a page advocating the murder of Mitt Romney to remain live for nearly an entire month. the page was eventually pulled, but Facebook rebuffed complaints, saying the site did not violate their standards.
Facebook is still the most popular social media site of its kind on the Internet, but many are looking for alternative sites where they can exercise free speech and free expression without censorship.
Related:
- Double standard? Palin ‘hate’ page flourishes as Facebook bans conservatives
- Tea Party Community: Conservative alternative to Facebook to launch this weekend
- Media silent as Facebook removes page calling for murder of Mitt Romney
- Facebook page calling for death of Sarah Palin gets more violent
- Facebook targets conservative page for closure, backtracks and apologizes
- WePluribUS.net: A conservative alternative to Facebook
- White House yanks petition asking for action on Facebook censorship
- Is Facebook actively censoring conservative bloggers?
If you like this article, you can follow Joe on Twitter @jnewby1956, or visit and join his Facebook page.
Scott Rohter created Wepluribus as an alternative to Facebook tyranny, but now holds the sword, so to speak, over members of Wepluribus… and wields it with glee. Demanding real names and photos from members — even though his technical admin violates BOTH of those policies, and then banning people who don’t appreciate his view on things (while leaving their profiles up as “ghost” members, I would guess to inflate his member list). Check yourself: the site automatically makes you “friend” to Scott when you register, but even though he has 2000+ members, he sports less than 600 “friends”. And this: Google “wepluribus profile”, and look at some that pop up either as empty, or stale, or just a couple of entries then nothing. Something’s amiss there; beware.
Tom, I’m also signed up at WepluribUS and Scott has made no such “demands” of me. He has told me that he banned an anti-semite and he blocked a couple of porn spammers, and there’s a reason those empty profiles exist. Your “evidence” here is rather weak and what’s “amiss” is a substantive argument.
Joe: Yeah, I’ve noticed your profile (visible without registration). I’ve known Scott for more than a year, and he threw me under the bus a few weeks ago because he misunderstood the process of transferring to the new server, and insisted I had broken something. Oddly, I had a notion that after he pleaded — almost wept — with me to help make that transfer (I did the DNS cutover, and got the WRONG SSL certificate to at least allow access in spite of being incorrectly generated), that it was a bad idea and I should let him just carry on with the transfer as he began it (software and data already copied over before he asked for help).
But let me disabuse you of the idea that all he done is ban a couple of spammers: he banned a person named “Jewel 4 America” yesterday, and I happened to catch Scott’s profile entries before he wiped the messages out, but after he had already cleaned out the traffic in that person’s profile. He banned a person named “Kelly Richardson” a few days before that, who had inadvertently wandered into the profile page of “Wepluribus Admin”, seen a diatribe from Scott there, a month old, and posted “Wow! What happened?” on that wall. Scott saw that, and accused her of being part of a conspiracy, and banned her. No, Joe, he’s banned lots of folks already, and he DOES — check his profile — push back at people to put up a real photo and use real names. Frankly, I’ve known about his anger and rage since I met him, and every once in a while he let’s it slip out, like in the 78 second voice mail he left for me, screaming at the top of his lungs, because I posted — on the site — that the site was up and running, although prior issues had not yet been dealt with. He couldn’t yet see the site — his problem — and accused me of somehow doing something to keep “most” people off the site.
Keep your head down, Joe, so that you don’t become a target. But check the DOZENS of profiles that have gone stale, there for a few days then gone, or totally empty (Scott emptied Wepluribus Admin, too).
It sounds like you have personal issues with Scott. Why are you airing this in public? Almost sounds like you have a grudge against him and want to hurt him and his site. Why not just let it go and move on? Why do you have to attack him and his site on every article written about it? Sounds kinda obsessive to me…
In public? Because Scott has publicly defamed me on his site, then would not allow me to defend myself against the accusations. On every site? Hardly. This one just caught my attention. My warning stands; there is something amiss. I spent the last year helping Scott, and would have continued except for his public declarations against me. Even after he removed me from his site, and made those declarations, I still passed along information and support to others who were working with him, so that they could take credit for what they were doing.
It was the continued repetition of accusations, followed by observation, from a distance, of the same banning behavior that convinced me this was worth opposing now. The last person I saw him ban, Jewel 4 America, had this to say: “I know your type.. and so do the other women who I will make sure see what you did… your so obvious.. …[omitted]“, followed by (14 minutes later) “get off my page.. your just showing everyone what a mean controlling [omitted] you are.” I came across that exchange by accident, just looking at the public spaces on the site, but then captured it, because it was so appalling. Those comments, and more, were on Scott’s public profile page, and scrubbed soon after, as were Jewel’s posts. You can ask her yourself. She’s at Tea Party Community now. And no, I do not know that person.
Like I said, you seem a bit obsessive to me. And obsessive usually means dangerous.
ROTFLOL! Wow, what a leap! You can find postings from me all over the web, in various forums and in on diverse topics. Tom In Oregon City, OregonCityTom, Tom Harrison (Facebook). Dogged? Yup. Webmaster for various conservative websites, 40-year programmer/designer. Obsessive? Only to the extent that I believe he’s going to do damage to other people. As long we are playing couch-diagnosis ping-pong, it sounds like you’re in denial because you are unwilling to entertain any negatives about Scott. Google him, Joe. He’s done good stuff, and he’s done bad stuff. Suffer his irrational rage just once, and you will know if anyone is dangerous, it’s Scott. Why else do you think he is alone his entire life? Want the names of the others he’s hammered with rage lately? I thought not. Reporting this exchange back to Scott, are you? Feel free. But I think we are done now. How many sites do you think I’ve visited to comment on Scott since this? Answer: 0. Still sound obsessive? I’m sure it does… to you.
Actually, Tom, you’re the one who started this with the personal attacks on Scott. Your responses are typical of someone with an axe to grind. Good night, Tom.
(grin) I know, I know: I simply FORCED you to reply, your fingers drawn inexorably closer to the keyboard, your mustache twitching uncontrollably, glasses fogging from the… ah, forget it. By the way, that’s a cute little cartoon dog-banjo-is-his-name? you have for a avatar on We. Query: why not use your regular picture? I mean, Scott is always asking — sometimes demanding — new people to do that. Ah, rhetorical question. I need not get your mustache twitching again, as you obsessively run to Scott’s defense.
So, do you, like, post EVERYTHING from examiner.com on We?
Joe, it’s been fun. But now I’ve got work to do.
And no doubt, I FORCED you to make your original comment by mentioning WePluribUS in the article. Please…
Actually, the profile pic is Japeth, the banjo-playing goat from Hoodwinked. Same pic I use for Facebook. I have work to do as well, Tom. Bye now…
BTW, Tom, this conversation is over. Get a clue.
Scott talks about ‘daddy Zuckerberg,’ but he himself has become much worse. No wonder his site is such a dismal failure…
Rich: Scott HAD something like 2200 members (the sequentially-assigned profile numbers have gotten up to 2580+), but recently purged about 500 of them, for whatever reason struck him at the moment, I guess (not tolerant of anonymous members — meaning “Publius” couldn’t even join! — or thinking they were trying to sabotage him, or whatever). And he has blocked IP access to folks who hit too many dead pages (“Not Found” errors end up in the log), which only compounds the problem. It’s actually possible to click on links from either the front page, or from the member list, and get blocked because of it, by direct intervention from the tech people. Apparently he doesn’t even realize that as search engines spider the site, they follow links, and when a large number of them result in “not Found”, he’ll end up blocking Google and such! That’s what lack of education and paranoia will do to a guy. Most bizarre. So, member count now down to 1682, but I’ll clue ya: a lot of them are “page not found”, but still listed. Who knows how many are real?
“For a guy who proclaims that people should register with a real name and real picture”…that’s why he has an admin whose “name” is Oakland Tea with no real pic and a female admin whose pic is a cross…and yes – he force friends everybody. He had several members that I know of rightfully, IMHO, quit the site, after Scott deleted posts/pics of Michelle Obama, saying black people might find them offensive. Those posts had nothing to do with her race. Another poster used the word ‘ass,’ and Scott dutifully went into the post and changed the word to ‘arse.’ His own admins had even ‘liked’ some of the posts bhe deleted. Then when he went off on a weird tangent the other day, complaining that some people were posting much and commenting on other posts too little, that this didn’t seem ‘fair’ – whatever the hell THAT means, well…there’s no “We” in that site. Should just post his name and call it “Mepluribus” and put some truth in advertsing and say something like…”Come join my site, which is about me, and what I think and believe, and as long as you agree with my ‘wee’ paranoid mind, I won’t ban you!”
Just read that Tim Selaty banned Scott from TeaPartyCommunity. He must have read the trash-talk that Scott posted about TPC, claiming that Tim is just in it for the money. Well, I’ve met Tim. Seems like an upstanding free-market capitalist to me.
He banned me and others from his site for posting a link to TPC and offering constructive (and yes – civil) criticism. Even went into posts and reworded things he didn’t like. Seems to be “HIS” site, and contrary to his original interviews when he started the site, users have no input – at least, unless you agree with him, and everything he thinks or does. Again – it’s no small wonder it’s such a dismal failure.
Tim, on the other hand, lets his site run without a lot of micro-managing, censorship, etc. but is hell on the trolls. These two different ways of managing explain the vast difference between the two sites. Scott says no anonymous names or pics, but his admins use either/or/both. Very restrictive site, and I saw users bail themselves and talk amongst each other in the time I was there, basically all asking why he runs that site like an egotistical tyrant. A quick search showed the site valued at around $1900, with the potential to raise about $277 in annual revenue. One would ask…why bother?
Tom has a point, Joe. Scott is a few fries shy of a Happy Meal. He bans people on a whim, and leaves their profiles up. And in every case I’ve heard of, the person banned was given no reason or explanation – they just went to log on and received a blank page that said they had been banned from the site. What Tom is exposing here SHOULD be in the public eye. To offer a site purporting to be a ‘conservative alternative’ to Facebook, then to run it like an egotistical paranoid fascist…well, people need to know. It’s irrefutable that his meager membership continues to decline, while sites like TPC (which Scott is banned from for HIS trash talk) have seen a 2000+ percent INCREASE in the last few months alone. United Patriots is another outstanding site. But even lesser sites put Scott’s site to shame. Actually…Scott just does that to himself…
And to put a cap on the whole wonder of WePluribiUS, the owner of the site, Scott Rohter, who “friends” everyone who registers (actually, the new registrant doesn’t get a choice), has not made his profile (“private”, so it cannot be seen by anyone outside of the registered members. For a guy who proclaims that people should register with a real name and real picture to now hide his own postings from the outside world sounds almost cultish. So, folks, decide for yourself: what’s Scott got to hide, if not his treatment of people who register but don’t win his favor?
A cap, I wrote? Oh, my, I had no idea what was coming! Early along, before Wepluribus got many members (well, it still doesn’t), Scott mentioned to me how unhappy he was about people making their profiles “private”, concealing their postings from any but their “friends”. He still demands that members “stand up and be counted”, with public affirmation of their positions, by making them under real names and photos of themselves. How times change!
Because of the negative publicity Wepluribus has gotten — banning people and little tirades by Scott and such (he still does it) — there’s been a change in policy at the site: it now appears that by default, all new profiles created from registration of new users are “private”. Even Joe, my jousting opponent above, has made his profile “private”. All the admins are “private”.
Fascinating, since the site main page, encountered by all visitors before registration or login, provides as its only teaser a line of member avatars, linked to their profile. More and more frequently now, those links end with “profile is private”. So, nobody can “see” anything going on inside without registering, thus giving Scott another “member”, even if that person comes and goes away forever after seeing what’s there.
Shine a little light, and the cockroaches scurry back into the woodwork.
I wonder what Scott has planned next, or what conspiracy is being planned under cover of “private”. LOL!
Real simple – make all profiles private, and nobody can see what YOU did – which is that most of those profiles are dead – either by the people leaving the site, or Scott banning them. Perhaps, like his WWII counterpart, once he’s purged everyone and finds himself surrounded by only a few loyal servants and a multitude of people who he has wronged and now really ARE out to get him, he’ll also take the same ‘honorable’ option to avoid his capture and being put on public display…
And just when you thought things were settling d0wn, Joe: Scott is now the only admin left, he’s about to move the site yet again, is now begging for money (he has his own appliance repair business and the site costs less than some people spend on lattes in a month). Oak Hills TEA, the tech, left some time ago, over philosophical differences, it seems. Marilyn quit posting about 10 days ago, and Paula Bunyard’s profile has been obliterated. Awesome little cult you’ve joined, Joe. Complete with an out-of-control guy at the helm, without so much as a council or board to moderate his behavior. He promised the site would be free for a year, remember? Poof! He promised people would not get banned or censured like they do at Facebook. Poof! Last month or so, almost 1000 gone.