2 weeks Ago By David Richards
A As the CEO of the Company that owns Facebook Mark Zuckerberg’s was being grilled at a US antitrust judge his underlings or their use of a poor humour AI machine, closed in on Melbourne based audio retailer Carlton Audio, with a ban now slapped on the Companies posting to Facebook over of all things an image of Barack Obama the former President of the USA who is no fan of current President Trump. Rab Turner who is well known for his postings to the Companies Facebook page told ChannelNews “Our Facebook page was suspended without possibility of review after I posted this image, presumably by their AI administrator”. “It seems that perhaps the new regime of Trumpism is capable of operating at a very fine level of censorship”.
He added on LinkedIn “Like most of our peer business entities in Australia we have become reliant on the sovereign entities of Google and Meta to advertise our branding and wares to our buying audience. In our case we work hard on our Facebook presence where we have created a minor but genuine audience over the last few years. “Other Hi fi type businesses in Australia are very active on Instagram and may have a strong presence with paid Google advertising”.
“I posted the image to our Facebook page, not as a paid advert but just a way of informing our client base that we would be open for some prehensile trading over the Easter period”. Alas the result is that the Carlton Audio Visual Facebook page has been suspended without the opportunity of review, or any time scale being placed on its revivification. “In these days of fundamental cultural division across the raw persona of the United States, for me to use an old political slogan that I found positive and hopeful alongside that colourful caricature a Trumpistically maligned individual, is perhaps an obvious mistake”.
Facebook has not responded as to why a small Melbourne audio store was singled out. Some claim that Zuckerberg would “do anything” to get on the right side of US President Trump. As the drama in Carlton Victoria was unfolding the private emails about Facebook’s purchase of Instagram more than a decade ago came back to haunt Meta at the historic antitrust trial with the outcome of the case ultimately hinging on whether a judge buys his attempts to explain them away, experts have said.
.. The Federal Trade Commission presented a series of explosive private messages, including a 2012 exchange in which Zuckerberg said buying Instagram would “neutralize a competitor” a turn of phrase that FTC lead attorney Daniel Matheson labelled a “smoking gun”.
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