Washington congressional candidate Loren Culp claimed this week that Facebook had notified him it was about to delete his campaign page — a move he decried as an example of Big Tech censorship of conservatives.
But Facebook says it sent no such notice, and it appears Culp may have fallen for a common phishing scam.
As of Wednesday, Culp’s page had not been removed and a Facebook spokesperson said the company had no plans to do so.
Culp, the Donald Trump-endorsed Republican seeking to oust Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, for his impeachment vote, blasted out an alert to his supporters on Twitter, and sent a fundraising email Monday headlined “We’re Being Canceled by Facebook.”
In it, Culp said his campaign had just been notified “that we are being de-platformed with zero reasons given as to the specific reason.” The message asked supporters to “chip in $10 to help us fight back against Zuckerberg and the censorship machine at Facebook.”
Culp shared an emailed notice, ostensibly from Facebook but containing grammatical errors, which said the Culp for Congress page would be unpublished “because it violates Pages terms.” The message gave a link for the Culp campaign to appeal the decision.
Culp’s announcement grabbed widespread attention on social media and generated several news headlines.
But according to Facebook, Culp’s claim is false. As of Wednesday evening, his campaign page remained live.
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