Facebook permanently suspended the account of Heroes of Liberty – publisher of kids biographies on Amy Coney Barrett
Facebook has permanently disabled the account of a conservative children’s publisher for failing to comply with its ‘low quality or disruptive content’ policy.
Heroes of Liberty, which has published child-friendly biographies of Repulican figures like former President Ronald Regan, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and social theorist Thomas Sowell, launched in November 2021, with the goal of producing children’s content on underrepresented ‘heroes,’ said co-founder and editor Bethany Mandel.
Facebook did not give exact examples of which posts violated its policy, but in a message to Heroes of Liberty it pointed to a rule included in its advertising guidelines that states: ‘Ads must not contain content leading to external landing pages that provide an unexpected or disruptive experience.
‘This includes misleading ad positioning, such as overly sensationalized headlines or prompts for users to inauthentically interact with the ad, and leading people to landing pages that contain minimal original content and a majority of unrelated or low quality ad content.’
Facebook has not responded to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
In its last post on the now-disabled page on December 19, the publisher advertised one of its books saying: ‘Teach your children and grandchildren the morals and principles of Thomas Sowell with his beautifully illustrated biography. There is no better way to ensure a more promising future for the next generations.’
It includes a post with a quote by Sowell that says: ‘Our children and grandchildren may yet curse the day we began hyping race and ethnicity. There are countries where that has led to slaughters in the streets but you cannot name a country where it has led to greater harmony.’
The page also posts to external reviews on right-leaning news site DailyWire.com and to a segment on The Megyn Kelly show which aired on December 15 – days before the page was disabled.
The Facebook page links to the publisher’s website, which contains links to segments on Fox News, and political commentator Megyn Kelly, who bills the book series as ‘counter-programing’ woke culture.
The child-friendly biographies include a book on Ronald Reagan and Thomas Sowell. In its last post on the now-disabled page on December 19, the publisher advertised one of its books saying: ‘Teach your children and grandchildren the morals and principles of Thomas Sowell with his beautifully illustrated biography. There is no better way to ensure a more promising future for the next generations’
Facebook says it does not allow ads that ‘contain content leading to external landing pages that provide an unexpected or disruptive experience’
Facebook’s freeze prohibits House of Liberty from advertising and posting on its page
In the Megyn Kelly segment, Mandel says the company publishes a book series ‘about great people who embody the life values that we want our kids to carry with them through their childhoods and into adulthood. Liberty, freedom, family, standing on your own.’
She added: ‘Instead of teaching children about victimhood, its about standing on your own and Thomas Sowell was a great example of that.’
Mandel also said in the segment that the series was created for parents to read to their kids at home.
Heroes of Liberty editor Bethany Mandel
‘Whatever is going on at their kids’ school, they can push back a little bit at home and teach their kids the right way we want our kids to be because we can’t count on the schools to do it.’
Mandel said the startup ‘threw a lot of money’ at growing its Facebook presence, only to be dinged with ‘disruptive content warnings.’ The social media giant ‘permanently disabled’ the ad account December 23, blocking the publisher from buying ads or even posting content on its public page.
‘I think a lot of people think that our books are political, but they’re really not,’ Mandel told DailyMail.com. ‘They’re just telling the life stories of these folks without without an agenda.
‘We sort of got – we think – dragged into the political fray of big tech dinging conservatives, even if we’re not an overtly political company. We’re just selling nice children’s books.’
While the conservative publisher has been shut out of its accounts, the publishers of left-leaning children’s books remain active on the social media platform.
Penguin Kids Books – publisher of the Little Book of Little Activists, the She Persisted series, Change Sings, and more – remains active on Facebook. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers – with titles including Feminist Baby and the ABCs of AOC – is also in control of an active Facebook page.
Mandel and her colleagues are unclear about how the Facebook page ran afoul of the rule, although the site did receive pushback from adults opposed to the content they were promoting
Mandel said she and her colleagues are unclear about how the Facebook page ran afoul of the rule, although the site did receive pushback from adults opposed to the content they were promoting.
‘Haha, brainwash the little s***s from day one,’ wrote one commenter.
‘I am conflicted,’ posted another. ‘My respect for the 1st amendment says they should be allowed to post this twaddle – but my sense of decency is telling me to buy these books just to burn them.
‘Maybe the Barrett book twice to cellular level evil.’
Mandel said the publishing house was launched to provide alternative reading to material promoted by book giants such as Barnes and Noble, which are filled with woke literature for little ones.
Teach Your Dragon About Diversity, sits next to ‘Daddy & Dada’. A few books down, Joey – an illustrated hagiography of Joe Biden written by, ‘best-selling author,’ Jill Biden – sits propped on a shelf.
There are books about transgender infants, queer families and dreamers, but the subject that dominates all others, bound up in the pages of child-friendly picture books, is race – that and a dollop of police brutality and activism.
Mandel said she sought to take a different approach.
‘We saw a hole in the children’s book market and the children’s book industry is really taken over by progressive woke ideology,’ she said. ‘You can see that if you just go to a Barnes and Noble and look at their children’s book selection, it’s very obsessed with gender.
‘We were looking at the market and there were 27 children’s books about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and we wanted to create content that half of America don’t have within the children’s book world.’
Mandel took to Twitter to share news of the Facebook ban, saying: ‘Our books are designed to inspire children. We invested much of our seed capital in building our brand on Facebook. But Facebook has now shut down our advertising account.
‘The official reason? ‘Disruptive Content.”
A slew of ‘woke’ children’s books is dominating book shelves with titles like Antiracist Baby, Feminist Baby, Woke Baby, Teach Your Dragon About Diversity and Daddy & Dada
This Little Trailblazer: A Girl Power Primer, A is for Activist and Woke Baby are all in the Early Learning section of Barnes & Noble
Others on Twitter shared her outrage, with one user calling the move ‘insane’ and slamming Facebook for censorship.
@deckdaddy25 tweeted: ‘When will the censoring end? You have every right to advertise for your company as the next person regardless of its contents. Something needs to give social media is a cancer and we need to treat it as such.’
‘Wowza. That is next-level insanity. So sorry. Going to buy these books now in support,’ tweeted @kerryktroup. ‘Just subscribed. Good luck, and I hope you get tons and tons of new subscribers.’
Others sided with Facebook.
‘Painting controversial people as ‘heroes of liberty’ and having children as your target audience sounds like disruptive content to me,’ NotTheeKeanu tweeted. ‘It appears as [you’re] aiming for indoctrination.’
Mandel said that the publishing house will continue to pursue other biographies, including John Wayne, Margaret Thatcher and Mark Twain because they are people ‘that our kids desperately need to know about.’
Source: dailymail
