Today we sent a copy to Facebook's press office and their PR company regarding the unwarranted removal of the L.A.D. Facebook page after mass reporting by so-called Loyalist Facebook users.

The email addresses we sent it to are:

Facebook: press@fb.com
Their PR firm is Blue Rubicon and the contact there is ronan.joyce@bluerubicon.com.

Why don't you do the same?
Simply cut and paste the text and send to the addresses above.

Thank you for your support.

Dear Facebook

I am writing to you regarding the group Loyalists Against Democracy who until recently had a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/loyalistsagainstdemokracy until it was 'unpublished' by Facebook. Subsequently two replacement L.A.D. pages have also been 'unpublished' by Facebook.

Some background:
L.A.D. is a cross-community, non-political group set up to combat the growing tide of sectarianism in Northern Ireland through the use of satire. L.A.D. use a combination of: original material (songs, artwork and videos) and screenshots to hammer home the point that sectarianism is wrong. The screenshots are taken from various public Facebook pages and show other Facebook users making vile hate filled statements that promote sectarianism and in many cases incite violence. Those responsible for these posts have been responsible for an ongoing and often violent campaign of civil disobedience 'protesting' at the democratic decision to fly the union flag on designated days only, as is the case in the rest of the United Kingdom. They have also been openly hostile and violent in their opposition to the decisions of a legally constituted body known as the Parades Commission who legislate on contentious parades in Northern Ireland.

L.A.D. is put together by a small team drawn from across the political and religious spectrum in Northern Ireland and enjoys huge support from both communities. When www.facebook.com/loyalistsagainstdemokracy was closed the page had nearly 9000 followers. The blogpage http://loyalistsagainstdemocracy.blogspot.co.uk has received over a quarter of a million hits since launching in June. The L.A.D. Twitter feed @LADFLEG has 4,606 likers (amongst them many local politicians including the Deputy First Minister and the Leaders of NI21 and the Green Party).

L.A.D. has been removed by Facebook purely as a result of an orchestrated campaign by certain right-wing ultra sectarian so-called loyalist groups in Northern Ireland. Their method is simple.They spread a message via their personal and group pages to report posts on L.A.D. as 'harassment' when this is clearly and demonstrably not the case.In certain cases they complain about various hate filled sectarian posts which they themselves have written. as we understand it when Facebook receives the requisite number of reports the pages are automatically 'unpublished'. Those responsible are effectively spamming Facebook's reporting system - which we understand is contrary to facebook's community standards.

Attached are many example of the campaign at work and also some examples of the hate filled sectarian bile that is allowed on the facebook system while a satirical page aimed at promoting peace and reconciliation is punished.

Recently L.A.D. teamed up with the Northern Ireland Children to Lapland Trust, a local cross-community charity raising funds for terminally ill, long term ill and deserving children  http://www.niclt.org/ . They have recorded a song and are in the process of shooting a video intended for the Christmas market.  L.A.D had hoped to use Facebook to market the song with all funds raised going to the charity. Sadly this marketing option is now closed to L.A.D.

I would like to know what Facebook intends to do about this and would respectfully request that www.facebook.com/loyalistsagainstdemokracy is reinstated immediately.

The offending screenshots detailing mass reporting can be found here:

http://imgur.com/a/1CISZ

Please reply as a matter of urgency,

kind regards,

xxx