Independent Media, the owner of newspapers such as the Cape Argus, Cape Times, The Mercury, The Star and Pretoria News, has been slapped with a seven-day restriction. Effectively, Independent Online (IOL) will not be able to post their stories on Facebook for a week.
Announcing on Facebook, the media house said: “We have appealed the sanction, and are awaiting feedback.”
It further stated: “To clarify, we haven’t received any official reason from Facebook, but suspect it has to do with an image in the last story we were able to share yesterday.”
A few readers wondered if that was censorship.
“Isn’t this a [sort] of censorship? i thought the idea of press was to tell the truth ESPECIALLY IN PICTURES…OR DO WE JUST WANT ‘NICE’ NEWS…” asked reader Carlo da Silva.
READ MORE: Press Council calls Independent Media’s withdrawal ‘an explosion’
Others accused the media giant of crass posts.
“Wow! That’s nice. It’s about time already. Enough of the racial hatred you’ve been spewing here. Thankfully, FB is not in on your pathetic agenda. Buzz off moron. We can do well without your divisive racial propaganda. Sies!” wrote another reader.
Another follower blamed IOL for not moderating problematic comments on its social media account.
“Reading comments here. I can not believe the crap people spew! The page was probably put on hold because of members comments. YOU PEOPLE ARE THE PROBLEM NOT THE NEWS PAGE, WHICH BY THE WAY IS ON ALL OTHER NEWS PAGES. So if you do not like the page and have nothing good to say BUGGER OFF,” Felicity Alcock fired.
Karen Hill, on the other hand, took the opportunity to mock the state of online journalism. “Maybe this will inspire you to take your journalism seriously and to start posting real news instead of crap!” she quipped.
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