The Skidder spent nearly a whole year battling through the UK's feeble Freedom of Information (FOI) scheme to obtain the facts, and duly wrote up a piece under a revised title, "Sandwell divert £0.5m+ from public health to buy diesel buses". The FOI is publicly available via the national What Do They Know website:
The Skidder published the article in the usual way via Google and disseminated it further by social media channels - something done in the same way for many YEARS. As far as this particular article is concerned it was posted to the dedicated Skidder Facebrook Group, "The Sandwell Skidder - Speaking Truth to Power" which has 1.8k members. The principal author of The Skidder, Julian Saunders, also posted - as usual - the article on his personal F\acebook page.
Within seconds both posts were removed for an alleged but unspecified "violation" of the site's rules. Julian immediately asked for a review but has heard nothing since.
It seems that there is some sort of algorithm at work here, but Julian reports that there is no obvious trigger for Meta's draconian action. The only possible trigger might be the C-word - being the name of the global pandemic that so recently engulfed us. The only other possible word is "g****washing" but this is also a word in everyday usage.
The President of Global Affairs at Meta is Nick Clegg, former politician of this parish. Here are some of his quotes from a speech he gave in 2015:
"Freedom of speech and a free press are at the very heart of our liberal, democratic society."
"Whether you are a reporter holding the powerful to account, ... [or] a commentator contributing to our national debate - thank you. You make us freer."
"We must always defend the right of a free press to do its work without fear or favour."
Julian adds: Nick, I read your book, Politics: Between the Extremes. Please read my article and tell me why it is offensive to the Metaverse?
All Skidder articles since 2013, including the one mentioned above, are available via:
thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com
Email: iancrowmultimedia@gmail.com
