Tens of people have complained starting Sunday that Facebook has blocked their accounts or the possibility of posting on their pages after they had shared or published posts and articles related to the anti-corruption protests staged in Bucharest and other cities on Sunday evening. Most of them were informed that their posts were reported “as spam” or that they “are incorrectly using” some tools of the social media channel.
Among the people with their Facebook accounts totally or partially blocked there are bloggers, vloggers, journalists and other influencers in various communities on Facebook. Among them, there was also the 101-year-old philosopher Mihai Sora, a fervent opponent of the Government and a very prolific user of the social media despite his old age.
Those having their Facebook accounts blocked could comment other posts, but they could not publish their own posts or share. They exemplified their complaints by screenshot captures.
The people have encountered those issues soon after they had shared the page of the event “Bucharest-Stop Justice Laws”. They could not publish or share photos from the protest as they were reported as spam.
Some have been partially blocked after sharing press articles regarding the participation of philosopher Mihai Sora to the protests, or regarding the protests (including from the ProTV website). People who shared live from the protests or who published protest messages against Liviu Dragnea or Calin Popescu Tariceanu, or who shared the message of ex-PM Dacian Ciolos on Facebook, they all had their Facebook accounts partially or totally blocked for several hours or more.
Philosopher Mihai Sora talked about the temporary blockage on his official Facebook page. “Dear friends, I have been reported (it seems this is the right verb). In other times, under other rules, there used to be the dobbing, which was very gainful for some people and which was meant any way to keep under control any hair that would have rebel habits. At some point during the late years of the Ceausescu regime, whistleblowing had become a conditioned reflex for a lot of people-from the neighbour in the block of flats, the chief or the mate from the office to the occasional pal, the reliable friend or dramatically (as it used to blow all family resorts) to the son who was informing against his father, to the father who used to strike down his son,” Sora said in his post.
“I have been stalked, swept away, reported for years, my telephone was tapped, may correspondece was written and translated (for, yes, the Securitate used to have empolyees who translated all letters into Romanian language, if you happened to have written in French, German, English or other languages). The files on my name in the CNSAS archive are many, overwhelming (…) This way I found out that dobbing in against me started in 1947 when I was a researcher in Paris (….) This way I saw in print my son’s <commitment>, recruited by Securitate when he was just 14, he was minor. And this way I found out and lived again the bad things the Securitate could do to a child, and the child could do to his parents,” Sora confessed.