Interview with Donna Partow: “Pray for Our President” Founder Donna Partow speaks out on the deletion of the popular prayer group by Facebook one month before the election
As reported yesterday, earlier this month, members of the 140k-large Facebook group “Pray for Our President,” led by Christian author and speaker Donna Partow along with Carlos Sarmiento, noticed the group was no longer listed in their Groups list. Smaller groups with the same name remained, but the largest group dedicated to prayer and positive thought for President Donald Trump and other leaders had mysteriously vanished during the critical month right before the election.
What Happened to the “Pray for Our President Group” on Facebook?
Christian Activities did some research and discovered the group dedicated to praying for President Trump had been temporarily shut down by Facebook before. We reached out to founder Donna Partow to find out what had happened to the popular Facebook group, and she graciously agreed to answer our questions.
Interview with “Pray for Our President” Leader Donna Partow: Why Was the “Pray for Our President” Group Deleted?
CA: Thank you for allowing me to ask you some questions about the recent deletion of your successful Facebook group “Pray for Our President.
Donna Partow (DP): You are literally the first person who has actually cared about this as a “story.” I’ve reached out to every Senator, Christian leader and political commentator I can think of. No response whatsoever.
CA: I think it is an important story and have wanted to get to the bottom of it. On your website, I read that the group was shut down in July. Then you were able to get it reinstated. When was it shut down the 2nd time?
DP: We were first deleted in July 2020, but after 4 hours on the phone with Facebook, I was able to have it reinstated.
We were suspended again in September, briefly, with no explanation. The group quickly returned with a notice from Facebook saying we had been deleted accidentally. “Oops. Sorry about that.”
Our group was suspended on October 8th shortly before 1pm ET, when we were scheduled to go live with Republican congressional candidate, Madison Cawthorn.
CA: Did you have any warning from Facebook? What message did you receive when they deleted the group?
DP: We had no warning. We checked our “Group Quality” daily. If any posts were flagged by the supposedly “impartial” arbiters of truth, we deleted them, even if we disagreed with their determination We endeavored to keep a “clean” group with no violations.
We posted this multiple times per day:
CA: I saw your Trump Prayer Chain website. Do you have a new home on social media yet?
DP: No. Sadly, of the 140,000 members, only 4,000 provided their email address, so – if you factor in a 20% open rate on email – we would be basically starting from scratch.
CA: Why do you think your group was deleted by Facebook?
DP: It is obvious that we were deleted because we were EFFECTIVE, and we were making a difference. At our peak, we averaged 5,000 new members per day, thousands of daily posts and more than 100,000 comments per day. It was an extremely active group.
This was on a slow day:
Facebook shut us down because of our extensive pro-Trump reach on their platform.
Even now, if you type “pray for Biden” in the Facebook search bar, most of the results will STILL be…our Pray for our President group. That’s how dominant we were.
CA: What else should our readers know?
DP: Facebook is a private company. If they are a “publisher” then they have every right to control what is published on their platform. My objection is that the are currently treated to the same legal protections as a utility company. But as my case clearly demonstrates, they are NOT functioning as an impartial utility that simply provides a neutral platform. They are clearly functioning as a publisher and should be subject to all of the same standards and guidelines of any other publishing company.
Facebook is clearly putting their thumb on the scales and pro-actively attempting to influence the coming election. Their efforts should be treated as in-kind political donations to the Biden campaign.
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Publisher’s note: Unfortunately, “Pray for Our President” is not the only conservative entity to be silenced on social media. Recently former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell appeared on the Logan Sekulow ReProgram, claiming Twitter is censoring conservatives, and new free-speech social media platform Parler called last week the “worst week ever for social media suppression of information.”
Social network platforms like Facebook and Twitter point to their “community standards” and TOS as reasons why conservative voices are silenced and groups are deleted, but they have no explanation as to why why BLM, Antifa, and other liberal groups are allowed to wish death and disease upon those with whom they disagree. Facebook and Twitter can interpret and apply their “community standards” however they see fit, because they are not accountable to anyone about their blatant efforts to control the flow of information to influence the 2020 election. Maybe it’s time that kind of power was removed from social media platforms that choose to censor and control the opinions of their members.
Related Articles:
- Popular ‘Pray for Our President’ Facebook Group Deleted from Facebook
- Parler Launches Erasebook.info to Expose Facebook’s Deplatforming & Privacy Abuses; Facebook Immediately Blocks It
- Conservatives, Christians, More Move to Social Networks USA.Life & Parler
- Worst Week Ever for Social Media Suppression of Information
- What Does the Bible Say About Politics?
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I agree wholeheartedly. This was anti-christian censorship at it’s worst. The DOJ is beginning an anti-trust case against FB.
Good!!!
I am sickened by Facebook censoring Christian thoughts, speech and prayers. Pray For Our President was a favorite of mine …I checked it every day, and read along with the wonderful prayers by so many Godly prayer warriors. I do pray that something can be done about Facebook and other social media’s evil censoring! They certainly do not fear the LORD, OUR GOD
Thank you for the comment about why the “Pray for our President” group disappeared from Facebook, Susan. I agree with what you said, and I also hope something can be done about social media censorship run amok.
Thank you, Kathryn! I know the other 130,000 + members of Pray for Our President would send you many hugs for being a voice for them. Shame on Facebook. Hope they have to pay millions in damages (taxes) in the future. Todd E.
Thank you for the comment, Todd, and for bringing the matter to my attention. It is egregious that Facebook would delete a group whose intent was to pray for our President, that daily posted guidelines so in step with Facebook’s community standards, and quickly deleted the few infractions they found. It is problematic that they shut it down with no explanation. Meanwhile, groups clearly devoted to overthrowing democracy, to harming authority figures like statesmen and police, that wish illness and death upon the President—these groups are allowed to flourish on Facebook. I hope something is done to penalize social media platforms that act like lackies for liberals by censorship of conservatives.