You may have noticed that our posts aren't showing up in your Facebook newsfeed anymore. That's because Facebook is suppressing our content.
Take a look at this chart showing engagement with our posts over the past year:
Despite our growing audience—we have many more followers now than we did a year ago—we're seeing a drastic, steady decline in reach and engagement. It used to be that 80% of our site's traffic came from Facebook. Now, it's down to just 30%. Babylon Bee articles posted to Facebook used to go viral, generating hundreds of thousands of shares. But that just doesn't happen anymore. Facebook doesn't allow it.
In some cases, our posts aren't merely limited in reach — they're completely suppressed. Here's an example of a recent post that Facebook prevented from being seen by anyone:
We'd have reached more people if we'd printed the article and posted it on a single telephone pole in a small town.
Facebook has assigned a representative to our account. He's supposed to communicate with us and help us resolve problems. But when we ask him directly if Facebook is limiting our page's reach, or suppressing shares of our articles, he refuses to answer me. He literally doesn't respond. He'll respond to other questions, but not that one.
The silence speaks volumes.
So what can be done about this? For now, there's not much that can be done. Facebook is a private company. While they shouldn't be allowed to engage in politically motivated viewpoint discrimination and still enjoy the benefits of Section 230 immunity, there's nothing under the law that currently prevents them from doing just that. This needs to change.
But in the meantime, all we can do is ask for direct support from you, our readers. By becoming a subscriber, you reduce our dependence on Big Tech and ensure we'll continue to have a presence and a platform, whether Facebook likes it or not.
We don't need Facebook if we've got you in our corner.
