An old claim about Facebook banning users who support the National Rifle Association is again gaining traction on social media, but there’s still no evidence of this.
“Well Facebook said that if you support the NRA you will get kicked off,” one July 2020 post says. “Well let’s experiment. I support the NRA how about y’all.”
The fact that this post is still on Facebook a year later should make clear that it’s not true, and Facebook spokesperson told PolitiFact the same. It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
Facebook doesn’t mention the National Rifle Association in its community standards, where it outlines rules about objectionable content such as hate speech and sexual solicitation. (Facebook does ban users from buying, selling or trading guns and some other regulated products on its platform.)
The NRA’s Facebook page, followed by more than 4.7 million people, is active.
And in September 2020, when USA Today looked into the claim, a spokesperson for Facebook said it was “not true” and that support for the NRA doesn’t violate the company’s community standards. Facebook also told AFP in July 2020 that the claim was wrong.
While we found other Facebook posts claiming that the company would ban NRA supporters from the social media platform, we found no credible evidence of this in news coverage or anywhere else.
We rate this post False.
This article was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. It is republished here with permission. See the sources for these fact checks here and more of their fact checks here.
