OfficerBlueWorcester, MA – A popular Massachusetts blog has told Blue Lives Matter that Facebook suspended their account for adding a profile picture meant to honor a murdered officer, and they provided screenshots to prove it.
Turtleboy Sports is a popular blog known for using vulgar language to shame local criminals and social justice warriors.
The site has also accomplished some amazing feats of journalism, such as exposing a corruption scandal within the Massachusetts State Police which resulted in their top brass being forced to resign.
But while the site has generated a large number of fans, they’ve also generated haters who take offense to being called ratchet “chudmuffins” and “methwaffles.”
Turtleboy Sports is supportive of law enforcement, so after the murder of Officer Sean Gannon, they changed their Facebook profile picture to honor him.
Officer Gannon was murdered on April 12 after he and his K9 partner Nero were trying to serve a warrant at a home on Blueberry Lane in the Marstons Mills section of Barnstable.
Time reported that they were searching for the suspect in the attic of the house when he opened fire on them.
Officer Gannon, 32, was fatally shot in the head, and Nero was also shot.
A black, armored tactical vehicle was used to gain entry to the home, and take the suspect into custody.
Officer Gannon was transported by ambulance to Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis where he died.
The Cape and Islands District Attorney’s office identified the shooter as 29-year-old Thomas Latanowich of Somerville, a career criminal with at least 111 charges already on his record, the Somerville Patch reported.
Turtleboy’s owner told Blue Lives Matter that some time after he posted the image honoring Officer Gannon, Facebook banned the Turtleboy Sports page for reasons unknown.
After the page got banned from Facebook, the owner’s Facebook account received a notification that he was being suspended for posting an image to the now-banned page. The notice said that the image honoring Officer Gannon “goes against our Community Standards.”
The notice came with a message that the account was being suspended for 30 days.
Turtleboy’s owner told Blue Lives Matter that this sort of thing has happened before, and he can usually just appeal the suspension and get it lifted.
He says that this time was different. The content that he was suspended for was on a banned page, and no longer existed.
When he appealed the page ban, he said was told that he didn’t actually violate the community standards, but the ban was staying in place anyway because it was deemed “insensitive or cruel.”
Blue Lives Matter contacted Facebook for comment about why the picture honoring Officer Gannon goes against their standards. Facebook said on Tuesday that they were looking into it, but have not responded with comment since.
Do you think Facebook should be able to suspend accounts for this picture? Feel free to share this story on social media so we can get some answers about why the picture resulted in an account suspension.
Help us defend from censorship, be sure to mark Blue Lives Matter as “see first” in your Facebook News Feed settings so that our content is less likely to be hidden.