Facebook Claimed Townhall.com Op-Ed on US Border Crisis by Vietnam Refugee Is ‘Hate Speech’

May 17th, 2023 10:11 AM

The leftist censors at Facebook got triggered over an op-ed by a Vietnamese refugee who dared to sound the alarm on America’s border crisis.

Retired U.S. Navy Captain and former congressional candidate Hung Cao — a political refugee from Vietnam — penned an op-ed for Townhall.com about the crisis at the southern border. Facebook reportedly called the piece “hate speech” and removed it.Illegals at border

In his piece, Cao compared his own experience fleeing violence in Vietnam for the safety of the United States to the ongoing crisis of illegal immigrants flooding the border. Cao noted that it took his family seven years to gain citizenship through the appropriate, legal immigration channels. By contrast, he observed:

 “We have all experienced a long queue some time in our lives and have been angry when a person tries to cut in front of us. This is what illegal immigration is, someone who cuts the line in front of thousands of others who have been waiting for years.”

This was apparently enough for Facebook to go berserk.

Polaris National Security PAC — for which Cao is a senior advisor — attempted to share the opinion piece to its Facebook page, according to a screenshot that Cao shared about the censorship. In response, the group received a message from Facebook that purportedly said the “post goes against [the platform’s] Community Standards on hate speech.” 

Cao blasted Facebook, and questioned:“[w]hat about telling the truth of our border is hate speech? Was mentioning the 85,000 exploited and unaccounted migrant children hate speech? Or maybe telling my own immigration story was the hateful part?”

As of the time of publication, Facebook representatives had not responded to a request for comment about the reported censorship, and the post appeared to have been restored to the Polaris Facebook page.

Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.