Wounded Veteran’s Popular Page Is Abruptly Shut Down by Facebook — See Why

Facebook has blacklisted a conservative news page run by disabled Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage (pictured above, with his family) without warning — after he reportedly spent more than $300,000 on advertising with the platform, as Breitbart reported.

The creator of the page Kolfage curated on Facebook, Right Wing News, also weighed in on the censorship.

“In a weird sort of way, it’s flattering to have Facebook target a page I used to run for destruction on the same day that The New York Times does an inaccurate hit piece on me,” John Hawkins wrote Tuesday in a piece for The Daily Wire. “It sure is a coincidence that both of those things happened the week after I ran a highly publicized GoFundMe for Brett Kavanaugh’s family that raised $611,000 (In case you’re wondering, we’re still waiting for word from the family on how they want to use the money).”

Air Force veteran and triple amputee Brian Kolfage wrote on his new website, Fight 4 Free Speech, which he created to fight social media censorship: “I’m a veteran of The United States Air Force. I was severely wounded in Combat, on 9/11/2004 while serving in Iraq I lost both my legs entirely and my right hand. I’m the most severely wounded US Airman to survive.”

Kolfage continued, “I’m not a ‘conservative.’ I’m not a ‘liberal.’ I’m an American, with deep beliefs in what our country stands for. I proved this by vowing to protect and fighting for America greatest tenant: Free Speech. Many Americans have fought for these political freedoms … freedom of speech … and every American has enjoyed those freedoms … UNTIL TODAY. October 11th Facebook shut down thousands of Facebook accounts for their political opinions stating that they don’t have a ‘legitimate political argument.’ STOP SOCIAL MEDIA CENSORSHIP NOW!”

Kolfage was the administrator of a number of Facebook pages, including Right Wing News and his own page, Military Grade Coffee — which Facebook deleted, too, reported Breitbart. Right Wing News alone reportedly had more than 3 million followers at the time of its blacklisting.

Facebook has deleted more than 800 U.S. publishers and accounts for “flooding users with politically oriented spam,” The Washington Post reported last week, noting that the company “demonstrated its increased willingness to wade into the thorny territory of policing domestic political activity.”

Is it a coincidence that this scrubbing of conservative sites comes right before the midterm elections?

“Facebook lied, they shut down my page because it was conservative, powerful, and the elections are in 2 weeks,” Kolfage said in a Facebook post Sunday on his personal page.

“We have MAJOR support flowing in all the way from the top of the Trump administration. Get ready!”

“My life was spared, but I paid for freedom with one arm and both my legs. I’ve given limbs, I’ve stared death in the face firsthand,” Kolfage posted. “I’ve seen my legs blown to pieces and lost friends. Losing my limbs meant comparatively little to me because I gave it fighting for what I believed in; I believed America was the greatest country because we had freedom … and I’ve seen what oppression looks like. My sacrifices are nothing compared to what previous generations made in WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam.”

The censorship has real-world impact for the people who work hard in the digital media space.

“My income as a father and husband is threatened,” Kolfage wrote in part on Facebook. “Now my livelihood is gone with it.”

Related: Facebook ‘Should Not Be a Censor — It Shouldn’t Be Blocking Certain Views’

“We had a coveted, verified blue check mark, 3.5 million fans, and I invested over $300,000 in ads at Facebook’s own request, nearly begging us to spend spend spend just to reach our fans … whom they kept making more difficult to reach with every passing year,” he explained.

Kolfage has no intention of standing down in the face of the social media behemoth’s actions.

“If I have to roll into their headquarters and sit there with people in the media, I will,” said Kolfage in an interview with World Net Daily. “I will be there exposing everything they’ve done to me and my family and our employees. We’re going to take legal action if we don’t get our pages back. It’s just going to turn into a sloppy mess for them.”

See more in the video below.

(photo credit, homepage and article images: Gary Sinise Foundation, Facebook)