ALDE’s Sibiu branch sues Facebook for allegedly harming presidential candidate’s campaign
The Sibiu county branch of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) political party announced that is has decided to sue Facebook for blocking its official page, an action that in turn brought damages to the campaign of presidential candidate Mircea Diaconu.
“Since October 28, the official Facebook page has been blocked by Facebook. Although they were asked for clarification on all available Facebook contact channels, they did not respond to requests,” representatives of ALDE Sibiu said in a press release quoted by local Digi24.
“It seems that all the money we pay Facebook for the ads are good. But our right to free speech is not,” added the president of ALDE Sibiu, Ovidiu Gheorghe Tocaciu.
The political organization’s Facebook page was blocked after several users reported it, but the ALDE Sibiu leader said that Facebook did not provide any answer or reason for responding to these requests.
“We are convinced that people of bad faith are doing everything in their power to block messages from the presidential candidate, Mircea Diaconu. However, Facebook reacted positively to their reports without any real reason. The decision to block our page and keep it that way without any motivation or response, makes us believe that those who manage Facebook in Romania have violated the law, and implicitly the US-based company Facebook, which supported this decision. Any violation of the law in Romania, even by a huge corporation like Facebook, must be sanctioned in court,” Tocaciu added.
The party organization requested moral damages in the amount of RON 10, as they say the legal action’s main aim is to draw attention to this case.
“Corporations like Facebook cannot dictate the outcome of elections in Romania as they did in the US, where they have provided confidential information to politically affiliated companies. The lawsuits opened against them there showed us that Facebook is not playing fair. No interference should be tolerated in the electoral process,” Ovidiu Gheorghe Tocaciu concluded.
Romanian actor Mircea Diaconu is running for president with the support of ALDE and Pro Romania. Some polls positioned him second in the presidential race.
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