A conservative college in Michigan called out Facebook for censorship after having its page taken down for launching a new course that is critical of communist and Marxist ideology.
"The @hillsdaleonline Facebook page has been down since Monday night, just as we launched a new course on Marxism, socialism, and communism," Michigan's Hillsdale College posted on X, reportedly drawing a mea culpa from Meta, the Facebook parent company.
"Facebook is denying people access to our course on repressive ideologies. Such issues are usually resolved within 24 hours, @Meta told us."
The post and page have been restored after Meta admitted to Fox News Digital it was "taken down in error."
"This page was taken down in error and was restored before we received this inquiry," Meta said in a statement.
The post from Thursday billed a new online free course examining the historical "misery" that communism and Marxism has done in world history.
"NEW FREE ONLINE COURSE | Marxism, socialism, and communism remain popular despite the misery they have caused throughout history," Thursday afternoon's post read. "Discover both the appeal and the menace of these ideologies in our newest documentary course. Enroll for free today: https://bit.ly/3SZsI5m."
The Hillsdale page has over 206,000 followers but it was blocked by Meta after launching a course that examines "racial tensions, radical feminism, transgender ideology, open borders, fiscal irresponsibility, the unequal protection of the laws, and the loss of our basic rights," according to the course description.
"The effects of Marx's ideas have already been seen in the histories of the Soviet Union and China. Yet Marxism remains popular among those who shape our cultural, academic, and political lives and in the popular movements pushing equity and diversity. All human relationships are now defined in terms of the systemic oppression of one group by another."
"Meta claims that Hillsdale's entire online course page was taken down for almost 100 hours because of ads they mistakenly flagged on Facebook, but those same ads had been running unchanged for over a year," Hillsdale College executive director of media relations and communications Emily Stack Davis told Fox News Digital in a statement.
"And we don't even run them on the page they took down! They are on our main Hillsdale College page. The timing of this censorship — right as we launched our new course on Marxism, socialism, and communism — was particularly inopportune.
"Meta's failure to provide an adequate explanation is especially distressing given the grave consequences: A third of our online course enrollments come via Facebook, the majority of them in the first days after we launch a course. We have potentially lost thousands of enrollees," the statement continued.
"More importantly, Meta has denied people access to a serious academic course on repressive ideologies."
Hillsdale College is a private conservative, Christian liberal arts college in Michigan, a key battleground state. It had reported a 53% increase in applications as of April 2022 amid culture wars during President Joe Biden's administration.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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