Facebook landed in political controversy after it briefly took down Alabama Governor Kay Ivey‘s campaign page on Tuesday as the Republican governor suggested that the move was prompted by her criticism of President Joe Biden‘s vaccination mandate.
The social media giant clarified that it had mistakenly flagged the account as an imposter.
Ivey cited her staunch opposition to the Democratic president’s vaccine push as the reason for the ban.
“Facebook banned my campaign page this morning. We fought back and won. Evidently, they’re upset that I said I’m standing in the way of President Biden to protect Alabamians from this outrageous overreach by the federal government,” Ivey said in a statement posted on social media.
“if big tech thinks they can silence us and that I will not fight back, then honey, they have not met me. They have another thing coming. I am not backing down. I never will. We are fighting Washington. We will fight big tech too.” Ivey added.
The dispute was regarding Ivey’s campaign page and not her gubernatorial account. She is running for reelection in 2022.
Facebook said that the content on the governor’s page played no role.
“Earlier today, the Governor’s campaign page was mistakenly restricted for less than an hour for reasons unrelated to any posted content. When we learned of our mistake, the page was quickly restored,” a Facebook company spokesperson was quoted by the Associated Press as saying.
According to the social media giant, the campaign page had been mistakenly flagged as an imposter account.
The governor’s campaign responded with a statement calling that a “nonsense excuse.” It added that Facebook first said it was unpublishing the page because of “harassment and bullying” and the campaign fought to get it restored.
Ivey has strongly encouraged people to get vaccinated against COVID-19, even going as far as to say. “it’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks” for a spike in COVID-19 cases.
But Ivey is also among Republican leaders nationwide who have vowed resistance to Biden’s mandate. Biden is mandating that all employers with more than 100 workers require their employees to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans.
Another 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid also will have to be vaccinated, as will all employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government.