Eastern Wayne Today

Two Facebook groups that advocate for ending Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s COVID-19 shutdown in Michigan were removed from the Facebook platform on May 12 for violating the social media company's Community Standards policy.

One of the groups, Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine (MAEQ), has 380,000 members, The Center Square reports. The group has been one of the main recruiters of protesters who have held demonstrations against Whitmer’s shutdown regulations.

Greg Soldano, one of the founders of MAEQ, criticized Facebook in a video and posted the video on a new Facebook group page called StandUP Michigan. Soldano created to StandUp Michigan to replace MAEQ.

“They will not silence us,” The Center Square reported Soldano as saying. 

Soldano charged Facebook with trying to keep the group quiet when they were “speaking the truth.”

"Unless government prohibits the event during this time, we allow it to be organized on Facebook," a Facebook spokesperson told The Center Square. "For this same reason, events that defy government's guidance on social distancing aren’t allowed on Facebook."

The Facebook spokesperson told The Center Square that MAEQ had received warnings before Facebook finally decided to take down the group’s page. 

Facebook took down another page, Michigan United For Liberty (MUFL), after an article in the Detroit Metro Times, a free weekly newspaper, charged the group with posting articles that included threats against Whitmer. The Detroit Metro Times (DNT) said the MUFL group’s postings included inflammatory comments against Whitmer and other state officials. 

A spokesperson for the 9,200 member MUFL charged DMT with misrepresenting the group by printing comments from unaffiliated individuals.

“Michigan United for Liberty is undeterred in its mission to unite the people of Michigan to engage in lawful political activity to end the unlawful, willful destruction of our state under the incompetent leadership of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer,” MUFL said in a statement printed in The Center Square.