'Boycott BP' Facebook Page Deleted--Then Restored: What Happened?

See update below

The controversial Facebook page Boycott BP, which calls on individuals to "Boycott BP stations until the spill is cleaned up," mysteriously went down on Monday, with visitors automatically redirected to Facebook's home page without explanation.

The page was back up again by early Tuesday morning, but the incident left its over-700,000-strong membership wondering if Facebook attempted to censor them.

According to its official description, the Boycott BP Facebook group aims to organize a general boycott of BP stations and brands, which the group lists as "Castrol, Arco, Aral, am/pm, Amoco, and Wild Bean Cafe," until the oil spill is cleaned up.

One person, Yadayadatwin, took to CNN iReport to publicize the disappearance of the Boycott BP group.

"This group was created with the intent of sending a clear and strong message to BP and to Washington that what has happened in the Gulf has to stop everywhere," Yadayadatwin wrote. "People from all over the world shared video clips, pictures, and frustration over what has been seen [as an] incredibly slow process to an ever growing economic and environmental disaster. The question is: Why did Facebook suddenly take down the site? "

Desmond Perkins (aka Bayou Lee), the creator of the Facebook group, tweeted late Monday that his "Facebook account was closed," adding, "boycott bp page was shut down."

He established a new Facebook page (Boycott bp/ARCO) while the original was down. His first post on the new protest page read,

Boycott bp/ARCO I can't believe they shut us down with no explanation. I could not even say goodbye to my friends. We must have been doing something right. Calling the media now. bayoulee.com is up and running. ty Bayou Lee

Today, Lee's original Boycott BP page was restored, but he wrote on his website that he has not yet heard an explanation or apology from Facebook:

FaceBook has restored the group Boycott-BP. I am still trying to get an explanation from FaceBook as to why the group was removed and will post any information I get. The PR people, at BP and now FaceBook, are getting a workout these days trying to cover bad press.

I am still working with my Webmaster to add blog capabilities. Keep checking back.

UPDATE: Facebook provided TechCrunch with a statement on the removal of the Boycott BP page, citing a systems "error."

Facebook wrote,

The admin profile of the Boycott BP Page was disabled by our automated systems therefore removing all the content that had been created by the profile. After a manual review we determined the profile was removed in error and it has now been restored along with the Page.

See Diane Sawyer's interview with Perkins in the video below.

WATCH:

Comments

[Darren Klein]

11:41 PM on 07/25/2010

Why not just boycott fuel, period. Shell, Caltex and all the others are out there drilling for the same stuff.

[MentalRob]

06:58 PM on 07/05/2010

Isn't this article a bit hypocritical coming from the Huffington Post after they deleted and banned the article Gov. Ventura wrote for them about 9/11? I'm glad Facebook sided with the American people and not pressure from the Government and / or big business.

[David Kearns]

10:59 AM on 07/05/2010

The official explanation is what used to be called "gobblety-gook". It sounds like something but, it's not. It attempts to cover up what you already know. 1. someone got chicken-sh^t 2. then someone went 'hey you can't do that!" 3. then, for a while, those who run the site went "we sure can" 4. then they decided "this looks really bad, AND the branding of the BP logo CAN be used in parody satire and shutting down the site is overkill and AGAIN, LOOKS REALLY REALLY BAD!" In the final analysis, all electronic media is temporal and like another poster said, your thoughts can be erased if the price or the lawyer is right.

[Sherri Ann]

02:13 AM on 07/02/2010

Check out this amazing music video on the oil crisis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xASgZTfwFZI

[rtb61]

11:51 PM on 06/30/2010

To sum it up, reality and fear overcame greed and deceit. Facebook users are up for sale, their opinion, their privacy and, the right to free speech. Those that continue to use Facebook, will lose to Facebook.

[Jeff Hendren]

10:14 AM on 07/05/2010

That doesn't make any sense. If Facebook's business model is mining data from captive users, then keeping pages with 700,000 members on their site is a huge concentration of data. Their creepy business model should be all over encouraging them to keep those people there. Facebook needs to keep all its users coming back to the site by offering them a painless quasi social interaction process or whatever it is that it does, while gathering information about their habits and selling that information to advertisers. So in that light I would say that self interest and business sense won out over short sighted fears or ideological qualms on the part of the shadowy powers that be at Facebook HQ.

[rtb61]

02:29 PM on 07/05/2010

Advertising as news, automated for profit social media as real people. As always corporations will seek to lie and deceive, to misrepresent corporate PR as public opinion, either by creating a false impression or by censoring true public opinion. In this case in return for advertising dollars Facebook helpfully removed anti-BP material, however user reaction forced re-instatement. Simply Facebook tried it on to see if they could get away with it, profit above moral integrity.

[SimonFromSydney]

10:49 PM on 06/30/2010

oh please, it seems it was just an automated process. facebook page gets a huge surge and it gets flagged/removed, usually to stop spam/malware, it was reviewed and found to be legit therefore returned.
People these days have no patience, bitch and moan at the smallest thing, and have this free is mine mentality where every website has to service your every whim.
These guys are trying their best to do a balancing act of security vs usability.
think of the scope of millions of pages they cant keep an eye on all of them, something automated needs to.

[33Greeper]

07:27 PM on 06/30/2010

Getting too close to the truth.

[kozmo9]

01:26 PM on 06/30/2010

Boycotting your local BP station is pointless. As of a few years ago, they are no longer owned by BP, so all you are hurting is a local business. Gas stations tend to get their gas from a wholesaler, who in turn gets their gas from whoever has the best price at the time.

But by all means, continue to bolster your smugness with misdirected hubris. Feels good, eh?

[thunder puck]

04:28 AM on 07/01/2010

Licensing fees.

[UhOh1]

11:29 AM on 06/30/2010

facebook censored a page against bp? how many more reasons are there to hate facebook? that's unbelievable.

[Jessica Howard]

11:05 AM on 06/30/2010

No reason to vilify Facebook on this one. It's pretty common for people to lose their profiles temporarily because the Facebook automated checker thought it might be violating the terms of use. I would assume that this person actually is violating the terms of page use, but the page is so popular that Facebook decided to give him a free pass. A Facebook page must be started by "an authorized representative of the subject of the Page," and the subject must be "a business or other commercial, political, or charitable organization or endeavor." What makes this guy the authorized representative for this political endeavor?

Here's those rules: http://www.facebook.com/terms_pages.php

[MichaelMarie]

11:45 AM on 06/30/2010

As of last night his 14 yo daughter's page was still down. They had received an email that said that she needed to copy her government ID to verify who she was. She's 14. Also funny how a bunch of smaller Boycott BP sites didn't mysteriously go down.

[Charity]

01:46 PM on 06/30/2010

Oh, dear. Someone needs to contact the 10 Zac Efron pages and tell them they are violating the FB terms of pages agreement. What makes them the authorized representatives for this entertainment endeavor?

[joymora]

08:42 AM on 06/30/2010

Considering how many racist, homophobic, xenophobic or just hateful pages FB does not remove even after they are reported by hundreds of people... if it wasn't a mistake and they removed this page on purpose... I would be really really mad!

[Ninure]

08:26 AM on 06/30/2010

I know this is aminirity opinion, but

Facebook is FREE to it's users.

Therefore Facebook really is under no obligation to host anything, and to remove anything it pleases.

[Ichigo Kurosaki]

07:24 AM on 06/30/2010

This is about FB protecting revenue streams from corporate advertisers. The same reason the corporate media deliberately ignores, or glosses over, a lot of news stories in favour of fluff pieces.

[x88justy]

03:59 AM on 06/30/2010

I could care less if BP actually pays for jack -- I just want them out of the USA forever, and for them to lose their share Iraqi oil - a reward for Britain for endorsing the invasion and going into Iraq with us.

[UhOh1]

11:30 AM on 06/30/2010

amen!

[blueskybigstar]

02:41 AM on 06/30/2010

I was told it was a CIA front company.