Facebook still censoring The Post’s reporting on Black Lives Matter — despite pledge to end restrictions
Facebook blocked a New York Post story that uncovered a Black Lives Matter (BLM) real‑estate buying spree, even as co‑founder Mark Zuckerberg pledged to curb the site’s censorship. The incident comes amid a Justice Department probe into whether BLM leaders misused donor money.
The Post first reported in April 2021 that Patrisse Cullors, the BLM co‑founder who calls herself a Marxist, spent $3 million on four luxury homes in Georgia and California. The properties included a custom ranch near Atlanta with its own airplane hangar and a $1.4 million house on a secluded road in Topanga Canyon, just minutes from Malibu. Cullors said she paid with her own money and never used BLM funds, but she stepped down only a month after the story broke.
Because the Post’s article highlighted the group’s ongoing DOJ investigation, Facebook users who tried to share the link were shown a message: “You can’t share this link…Your comment couldn’t be shared, because this link goes against our Community Standards.” Meta, Facebook’s parent company, replied at 5:30 p.m. Eastern that the block had been lifted and the link could now be shared.
This isn’t the first time Facebook blocked the New York Post. The platform barred the same story in 2021, and it also censored a 2020 investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop. After a House Judiciary Committee report revealed that the FBI warned U.S. tech firms about Russian “document dumps,” Facebook officials allegedly discussed silencing the reporter’s story to please the incoming Biden‑Harris administration. In a letter to the committee, Zuckerberg admitted that government pressure influenced Facebook to block certain content in 2021, including the laptop story and COVID‑19 posts.
“At Meta, we made mistakes,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I regret that we were not more outspoken about it, and I vow to act differently in the future.”
Facebook’s quick patch in Friday’s case suggests the censorship is at least temporary. However, the broader question remains: how often will the social media platform block news that scrutinizes powerful groups and their spending?
BLM’s 2020 protests erupted after George Floyd’s death by a Minneapolis police officer. In the wake of the protests, the movement received more than $90 million in corporate and philanthropic donations. In 2020, Zuckerberg pledged $10 million to racial‑justice groups, among them BLM. Yet the fundraising surge and the legal scrutiny of BLM leadership hint at a tension between public good and transparency.
Patrisse Cullors resigned in May 2021, her exit followed by the sale of the luxury properties. Earlier, she had lobbied for net‑neutrality and raised over $5 million from donors linked to Meta co‑founder Dustin Moskovitz and former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Those donations funded nonprofits such as Dignity and Power Now and Reform LA Jails, which advocate civilian oversight of law‑enforcement agencies.
The ongoing Justice Department investigation continues to examine how donations are allocated within BLM. As Facebook’s role as a platform for political reporting remains in focus, the public watches whether the company will uphold free‑speech principles while aligning with its stated transparency goals.
The next few days may reveal whether Facebook’s response was a quick fix or part of a larger pattern of content restriction—an issue that could influence user trust, advertiser commitments, and the democratic health of social media conversations about social justice.
Source: New York Post
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