Facebook apologizes for freezing account of Christian vlogger

Facebook has issued an apology for freezing the account of a Christian video blogger due to her posts citing Bible verses which emphasize that homosexuality is a sin.

The social media platform suspended the account of Elizabeth Johnston, who runs the blog "The Activist Mommy," on Feb. 9 because of a comment she posted over six months ago, in which she cited biblical passages that described homosexuality as an "abomination" and a "detestable" sin.

The blogger received a message from Facebook, notifying her that her post was removed because "it doesn't follow the Facebook Community Standards." Her account was also suspended for a period of three days, The Christian Post reported.

After her account was reinstated, Johnston explained to her followers in a Facebook post on Feb. 12 that her account had been suspended. She included a screengrab of her original comment as well as the message she received from Facebook. The Feb. 12 post was eventually removed, and her account was frozen for another seven days.

After the news about Johnston's account suspension broke, Facebook has offered an apology and restored her posts.

"The post was removed in error and we restored it as soon as we were able to investigate," a Facebook spokesperson stated in an email, adding, "Our team processes millions of reports each week and we sometimes get things wrong."

Johnston also received notification on Thursday that her two posts were "accidentally removed" by a member of the Facebook team.

While Johnston said that she appreciated the apology, she lamented that Facebook did not feel the need to take action until after the issue was reported by major media outlets.

"Saying this was an accident is a joke! They sent me the post and said it specifically violated their community guidelines," Johnston stated.

"Now they are saying they accidentally stated that and banned me for 10 days accidentally? No! It took a national news story to get my content returned to my page. What about the average Facebook user who doesn't have that luxury?" she continued.

She vowed to expose other examples of censorship on Facebook, and she has started a thread on her page, asking her followers to submit information on how the social media platform censors her page.

Johnston acknowledged that Facebook is a private company that does not have the obligation to uphold free speech standards, but she complained about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's claim that the platform is unbiased. She asserted that the platform is being used by Zuckerberg "to further his personal political, religious and globalist agenda,"