After having its page taken down from Facebook on Monday evening for what it says was for no stated reason, teleSUR English announced on Wednesday afternoon that its Facebook page of nearly 500,000 likes is active again.
According to the story, this was the second time this year that teleSUR English Facebook page was taken down this year. The previous time, teleSUR said it also did not receive an official reason from Facebook. It credited social media support and coverage from outlets like RT and Democracy Now!
“Hours after the page was restored, teleSUR received vague explanations from the company’s employees about the controversial incident,” teleSUR English wrote in the story about the activation.
As of now, teleSUR English’s original Facebook URL, www.facebook.com/telesurenglish, is not available, but a new Facebook URL, www.facebook.com/teleSUR-English-479681268841947, is live and appears to include all the outlet’s content.
A Facebook support technician, according to the teleSUR English story, sent the following response to the network’s social media coordinator: “The team informs me that there was instability on the platform, which caused this problem, but now everything should be in order. Well, I will proceed to finish your case and in case you have any questions about this matter you can write to this e-mail and I will gladly help you.”
However, teleSUR English reported, “RT journalist Daniel Cohen, who had contacted Facebook asking for an explanation about the removal of teleSUR English’s page, informed teleSUR that he received an email from a company’s spokesperson claiming: ‘The Page was temporarily unpublished to protect it after we detected suspicious activity. once secured, the page was restored. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.'”
This latest news comes around the same time that the Facebook page of Venezuelanalysis.com was also taken down on August 9. The page was soon restored, but a post by Venezuelanalysis.com (a contributor to Latino Rebels) about the removal raised questions as to why the page was removed in the first place.
“The timing of such a move is concerning for several reasons,” the August 9 post said. “Firstly, there is the international context, in which Facebook appears to be targeting independent or leftwing sites in the wake of Russiagate. However, in terms of our own coverage, in the days leading up to our removal, we had published important pieces which challenge the corporate mainstream media narrative on Venezuela. Specifically, we published an article giving details on the assassination attempt against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, as well as a very popular analysis criticizing the mainstream media’s coverage of the attack.”
“We cannot help but feel that the removal of our page is related to an attempt to stifle the alternative and progressive perspectives that we feature on Venezuela” the post added. “Though our page was suddenly reinstated on Thursday evening, following our official appeal, as well as people expressing their support for us on Twitter, media interviews and an article on the issue in Sputnik International, Facebook has still not responded with any explanation for what happened, nor to inform us which terms and conditions we allegedly violated. The whole thing is extremely mysterious, to say the least.”
