By Paul Woolverton
The Fayetteville Observer, N.C.
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) “Diamond and Silk” are huge supporters of President Donald Trump who often appear on “Fox & Friends.” They wrote on their Facebook page on Friday that they noticed in September their followers and fans on Facebook were receiving fewer notices from them. After several requests as to why this was happening, Facebook replied “The Policy team has came to the conclusion that your content and your brand has been determined unsafe to the community.”
The Fayetteville Observer, N.C.
The Diamond and Silk political video bloggers from Hoke County are making national headlines this week because they say Facebook has told them they are “unsafe to the community.”
This has brought accusations that Facebook has a left-wing or liberal political bias — Diamond and Silk are hardcore supporters of President Donald Trump.
The duo rose to popularity in 2015 for their intense and enthusiastic praise for Trump in videos they published on YouTube and Facebook. They also dole out vociferous invective against his critics.
They later appeared with Trump during the campaign.
“They don’t want us to be heard because basically an election is coming up,” Rochelle Richardson, the “Silk” portion of the team, told the “Fox & Friends” morning television show on Monday. “President Trump won the election by the people, we the people, through social media. And whenever they found out that’s how he won it, that’s why they are shutting down conservative voices. People that is pro Trump.”
Richardson and her sister, Lynette “Diamond” Hardaway, often appear on “Fox & Friends.” Their Diamond and Silk Facebook page has 1.35 million followers.
According to Fox News, Facebook is looking into the situation.
Despite the allegation that Facebook declared their page to be “unsafe,” it remained active Monday afternoon.
Neither Facebook nor Diamond and Silk responded to requests for comment from The Fayetteville Observer on Monday. They told the newspaper in 2015 that they decided to support Trump and quit the Democratic Party because they liked his messages about job creation and illegal immigration.
Hardaway and Richardson wrote on their Facebook page on Friday that they noticed in September their followers and fans on Facebook were receiving fewer notices from them.
They complained to Facebook, they said.
“Finally after several emails, chats, phone calls, appeals, beating around the bush, lies, and giving us the run around, Facebook gave us another bogus reason why Millions of people who have liked and/or followed our page no longer receives notification and why our page, post and video reach was reduced by a very large percentage,” they said.
“Here is the reply from Facebook. Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 3:40 PM: ‘The Policy team has came to the conclusion that your content and your brand has been determined unsafe to the community,'” the item says.
They said Facebook told them the decision cannot be appealed.
“This is deliberate bias censorship and discrimination. These tactics are unacceptable and we want answers!” the women wrote.
The women asked what is “unsafe” about two black women supporting the president, what they did or said that violates Facebook’s rules, and, if their content is in violation, why Facebook is still giving them options to pay Facebook to boost their material to show it to more people.
Fox News on Monday reported Facebook said it had concerns about the sisters’ online rhetoric, but that the social media company later said, “We are aware of this issue. We are reaching out to the creators of Diamond & Silk to try and resolve this matter.”
