Brace yourselves people… The hacktivist collective Anonymous has made a fresh call to supporters for a new operation targeted against Facebook, in order to protest against the social media network’s alleged censorship policies.

The call, which was posted at Anonnews.org, urges members of the collective to “band together” and bombard Facebook with “uncensored material”, reasoning that the social media site’s admins will be overwhelmed by the attack. The protest date has been set for April 6, which coincides with the anniversary of the beginning of Mahatma Gandhi’s famous Dandi Salt March protest back in 1930.

“It is time that Anonymous band together globally to prove that WE have the strength because we have the numbers. No one can stop free speech. No government, No corporation and especially not facebook.”

“APRIL 6 – 1AM GMT it begins:#OP TRUTH FORCE. All anons WORLDWIDE hit facebook with uncensored material.  We shall continue this bombardment of material as long as we can – hopefully 24 hours.
We will flood their system – their admins wont be able to keep up.
THEY CAN’T BAN US ALL AT ONCE!”

The protest comes following reports of a growing tendency towards censorship on Facebook. In one of the most recent cases that was publicized, the Jeu de Paume Museum found itself blocked from the site for a period of 24 hours after posting an image of a nude woman, which was part of an art exhibition by photographer Laure Albin Guillot. The museum has since had its access reinstated, but the photo in question has been censored by Facebook admins so that viewers cannot see the ‘naughty bits’.

In a statement accompanying the newly censored photo, the museum says that this isn’t the first time Facebook has reprimanded it for posting nude content, in spite of its obviously artistic nature:

“Missed you! Last Friday, the Jeu de Paume account was blocked for 24 hours following a decision by Facebook, which found that the picture attached infringed the ‘Facebook community Standards’.”

“We had already committed other offences in the past, publishing nude images of Willy Ronis and Manuel Álvarez Bravo. If we receive another warning from Facebook, our account may be permanently disabled. For that reason, we will not be publishing any more nudes, even though we believe that their artistic value is great and these photos are not pornographic.”

The decision by Facebook’s admins would seem to contrast with the site’s own community standards rules, which say that it respects “people’s right to share content of personal importance, whether those are photos of a sculpture like Michelangelo’s David or family photos of a child breastfeeding”.

Facebook censorship

Jeu de Paume Museum isn’t the only victim of Facebook’s overzealous policing in recent weeks. Last December, Natural News also fell afoul of the site’s community guidelines for posting a famous quote by Mohandas Gandhi saying “Among the many misdeeds of British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.”

Individual users have been targeted too. Take the example of YouTube user Jason Asselin, who was blocked for seven days after sharing public documents from the Missouri Courts, an offence that was also deemed to be ‘against the rules’.

All in all, it’s pretty easy to see why Anonymous is getting so worked up about Facebook. One only needs to do a search for “Facebook censorship” to see the extent of its silencing tactics. It isn’t exactly clear what the hacktivists have planned for #OP TRUTH FORCE other than to flood their system with ‘uncensored material’. While the collective may target some of the most popular community pages/famous persons on the site to get their message across, the sheer size of Facebook is a problem, and it remains to be seen if they can muster enough resources to make any noticeable impact.