Facebook censors a post by GOP representatives critical of debt forgiveness.

The social network considers that the message "if you ask for a loan, you pay it back" is "against community standards."

Facebook has blocked a post by the House Republicans' Judiciary Committee opposing student loan debt forgiveness claiming that the content of the post violated the social network's community standards.

The House GOP Judiciary Committee tweeted the contents of the post along with an image of the message that said it was blocked. One of them reads: "If you borrow money, you pay it back. Period." The other image shows a warning from Facebook saying that the post "is against community standards."

WOW: @facebook says our post on loan repayment violates their "community standards." "Big tech is at it again."

All this comes after Joe Biden announced his intention to approve the college debt forgiveness plan, which will forgive up to $20,000 of debt for those who have obtained a Pell Grant, and $10,000 for each loan granted by the federal government. The measure will also extend the current pause in student loan payments through the end of the year.

Fox News contacted Facebook for an explanation of the incident, and has not received a response on the case.

Facebook repeats censorship

This is not the first time such an interference has occurred. Conservatives have complained for a long time of being censored by technology companies that, according to them, silence their political opinions on the Internet. Senator Ted Cruz noted that there exists a "censorship by big tech, and that it is the one that has the power to gather information from a person so that they only receive the news that coincides with their own political agenda."

There is also the case of Meta, Facebook's parent company, which will restrict on all its platforms the broadcasting of any new political advertising one week before the mid-term elections in November. Banning new political ads a week before the polls is not new to Facebook since, in the 2020 general election, they did the same thing.

Meta's President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, confirmed this in a press release blog in which he highlighted the investment of US$5 million made last year to "prevent interference, connect people to truthful information and provide maximum transparency in the industry for any announcements on social issues, elections and politics".