Facebook Censors Gospel Group’s Music Video for ‘Political Content’

Social media giant Facebook recently censored a music video produced by a gospel music group, claiming that it featured “political content.”

Gospel music group Zion’s Joy! recently posted their new song “What Would Heaven Look Like,” to Facebook, boosting the video’s reach on the platform with a $100 advertising investment. But soon after the post was boosted, Facebook pulled the video not only from their advertising network, but from the platform entirely — for featuring “political content,” despite the video only referencing God and Christianity.

The video from Zion’s Joy! can be viewed in full on YouTube:

A Facebook spokesperson said in a statement that the company’s new political advertising policy was “new, broad and exists to prevent election interference, so we’re asking people with content that falls under those rules to simply get authorized and show who paid for the ad in order for it to run.”

The spokesperson also apologized for deleting the video stating: “Separately, we made an error by deleting the original post,” the statement continued. “As soon as we identified what happened, we restored the post since it does not violate our Community Standards and have apologized to Zion’s Joy.”

Robert W. Stevenson, the founder of Zion’s Joy! stated: “We want to touch people’s hearts and let people know that we can do better than the world is doing right now.  We wanted to make sure that it wasn’t leaning one way or the other. That it was just how we felt — people loving each other, regardless of race, creed or color.”

Breitbart News reported earlier this month that Facebook removed a post featuring an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence from their platform for violating their policies on “hate speech.” The owner of the Facebook page that posted the excerpt, and former paratrooper, Alfie Usher stated: “Facebook’s actions have put soldiers’ lives at risk. Guys use the page to express feelings which are really troubling them. They’re desperate for help. It is very hard for them to discuss issues relating to their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan with their families.”