Satirical Facebook pages: removed, restored and removed again
Ivaylo Mirchev of the DB alliance suspects state interference. The Interior Ministry cites mass reporting by users, and PM Radev says the government has "nothing to do" with it.
Symbolic image · Photo: microsiervos / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (cropped and resized)
Satirical Facebook pages, including that of the group BG Elves, which were taken down on Saturday, have been restored and then removed again, Ivaylo Mirchev, co-chair of Democratic Bulgaria, said on Sunday. "Facebook has no such practice," he wrote, saying state bodies were certainly involved. On Saturday he had already pointed to the Interior Ministry and the DANS security agency.
The Interior Ministry denied this, saying the likely cause was "mass reporting by many users" or a decision by the platform's owner. Prime Minister Rumen Radev also rejected any interference, saying the government had "nothing to do" with the removals. If reports to Meta had become excessive over breaches of basic ethics, that was a different matter, he added.
The restored BG Elves page warned of fake profiles which, the group believes, aim to poach its followers. Who removed the pages, and why, has not been established.