Facebook censors posts that accurately describe wildfires linked to arrests of arsonists
Facebook has announced that it will be removing all posts linking the wildfires sweeping through Oregon to arsonists after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) brushed off the reports as nothing more than baseless theories, according to a recent report from Big League Politics.
Facebook’s Democrat-aligned policy communications manager Andy Stone made the announcement on Twitter Sept. 13. The decision, Stone claimed, is based on claims from law enforcement that the rumors do nothing more than distract local fire and police agencies from fighting the fires and protecting the public.
However, this statement comes in direct contrast to the actual arson arrests that have cropped up in California, Oregon and Washington over the past week. Just last Sept. 12, for instance, Oregon State Police troopers arrested a man suspected of having started a fire earlier this week in southern Oregon
Convicted arsonist started large fire in southern Oregon
The suspect, identified as Michael Bakkela, had been seen lighting a fire behind a house in Phoenix, Oregon, around 5 p.m. local time, prompting residents to call 911. When police officers arrived on the scene, Bakkela was spotted close to a large fire that threatened to engulf several homes, the sheriff’s office told ABC News. Bakkela has since been charged with two counts of arson, along with 15 counts of criminal mischief and 14 counts of reckless endangering.
It’s also worth noting that the fires Bakkela started in Phoenix were confirmed to have contributed to the spread of the deadliest and most destructive fire complex still raging across Oregon, which local authorities plan to pursue as a criminal investigation in light of suspected arson cases.
But despite the arrest, the FBI announced that it had investigated several reports of arson and determined them to be untrue. State officials in Oregon and Washington have also turned to Facebook to censor the circulating rumors that far-left extremists were behind the major blazes tearing across the West Coast.
BLM rioter arrested for setting fires along a state road
Facebook’s announcement comes as blazing wildfire complexes are still tearing through Oregon, closing in on Portland, the center of the BLM protests, which are not without their own cases of arson and vandalism.
For instance, just last Sept. 10, a Facebook video of longtime BLM rioter Jeffrey Acord went viral after he filmed himself being apprehended just outside of Tacoma. It had over 155,000 views on his profile at the time.
Washington State Patrol troopers and local police arrested Acord and charged him with second-degree reckless burning after a Fife police officer saw him lurking near a growing fire in the median of State Route (SR) 167.
The suspect claimed he had nothing to do with the fire, explaining that he was looking for a camera case that flew out of his backpack while he was biking through the area earlier that week, reported KING 5.
However, the officer said that the suspect drove off when he pulled over. He then apprehended the suspect, who started live-streaming the exchange. “It looks like a fire literally just started,” he said in the video.
The fire itself had burned about an acre and a half before responders from Central Pierce Fire & Rescue put it out. The suspect was able to post a $1,000 bail the night he was booked. But he was hauled back to jail that same night after police caught him on surveillance breaking into a gas station not far from the jail.
This isn’t the first time that Acord has had a run-in with the police. In 2014, Seattle Police arrested him after finding weapons, ammunition and explosives in his car and backpack, reported Seattle Times.
Acord was attending a BLM protest in Seattle in response to the court decision that Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson will not face charges for his fatal shooting of an unarmed Black teenager.
In response to the circulating rumors online that far-left extremists are behind some of the major fires still burning in Washington, State Representative Jim Walsh said that officials have solid evidence this isn’t the case, reported The Post Millennial.
In a statement, Walsh explained that although several of the major fires in Washington are human-made, none of them is the result of arson. However, he did admit that larger fires burning in Oregon appeared to be suspicious. Residents in Washington have also taken to reporting suspicious strangers in their neighborhoods.
Facebook continues to manipulate users’ feeds
It isn’t just the arson reports that Facebook has been dead set on censoring. The tech giant has been facing backlash months earlier after it began to feed globalist propaganda about both climate change and the pandemic into users’ feeds.
In a statement, Facebook said that it will start showing messages to users who have interacted with content that had misinformation about COVID-19. The messages are designed to connect people to debunked misconceptions about the pandemic. It will also start removing posts that share those misconceptions.
Facebook has also come under fire for suppressing free speech regarding climate change and running propaganda on users’ feeds. Critics argue that the tech giant’s blatant manipulation of these feeds is a clear indication that it is pinning the raging fires on climate change alone and dismissing the confirmed arson cases.
In a recent article online, Brian Maloney, co-founder of the Media Equality Project, argued that Facebook has cared little for honest discussion and debate on the subject of climate change. He added that Facebook favors alarmists instead of credentialed climate scientists, hiding factual and scientific content from users’ feeds.
