Polish government informs Facebook of “strong opposition” to ban on far-right party

Poland’s national-conservative government has informed Meta, Facebook’s parent company, of its opposition to the social media giant’s decision to ban Polish far-right party Confederation (Konfederacja) from its platform for spreading Covid disinformation and hate speech.

“The Polish government has informed Meta that we do not agree with this approach,” said Janusz Cieszyński, the secretary of state for digitisation, quoted by Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. “We believe that the justification provided is not authentic.”

“We strongly oppose this,” continued Cieszyński. “These platforms are an essential part of social and political life in Poland and in every other country of the European Union.

Cieszyński argued that, even if Confederation’s page – which had 670,000 followers, far more than any other political party in Poland – had content “the government strongly does not support, [such as] disinformation about vaccines”, Facebook should have taken other steps, such as “marking or deleting a given post”.

He claims that Facebook “did not present any specific posts that were the reason for the deletion of the account, nor transparently communicate to the public why such a decision was made”. Cieszyński also noted that “you do not have to search long to find other profiles where such content” is shared and which remain online.

When announcing its ban of Confederation, Meta said that the party’s page had “repeatedly violated” its rules on COVID-19 disinformation and hate speech and that the administrators had been “warned several times” about this.

It said that the violations had included “false claims that masks do not contain the spread of the disease, that the death rate of COVID-19 is the same as or lower than that of influenza, and that COVID-19 vaccines do not provide any immunity and are ineffective”.

However, one of Confederation’s leaders, Krzysztof Bosak, claims that the “Facebook administration has never contacted us regarding any concerns about the way the profile is kept”. He said that the last time any content was deleted was in November, and that removal of posts “was never accompanied by any explanation”.

Cieszyński says that the government is continuing to work on legislation, which it has dubbed the “Freedom Act”, intended to guarantee free speech on the internet. The prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, pledged last year that his government would fight “totalitarian censorship” by internet giants.

After Facebook’s decision to ban Confederation earlier this month, Morawiecki noted that he often disagrees with the far-right party, but on this issue he “stands on their side today”. He warned that such actions by social media firms undermine “basic democratic values”.

On Friday, Cieszyński met with representatives of parliamentary parties to discuss the issue. Afterwards, he expressed hope that they would be able to “establish a common position that will further strengthen Poland’s position on the Digital Services Act”, proposed EU legislation designed to strengthen online rights.

However, Confederation representative Michał Wawer told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that the talks had “unfortunately revealed the government’s helplessness towards Facebook and other internet giants”.

Wawer noted that there was little sign of progress with the “Freedom Act”, which was first proposed over a year ago. The bill was added to the government’s legislative agenda in October but has subsequently not moved forward.

On Friday, Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro – who has proposed fining social media firms up to 50 million zloty (€11 million) for unjustly removing content or blocking users – called for work on the legislation to be “accelerated”, reports Wirtualne Media.

Main image credit: Jakub Wlodek / Agencja Gazeta

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.