Exclusive: Facebook Deletes Event Page for Friday’s Wisconsin Capitol Protest

Facebook has deleted the event page for a Friday protest at the Wisconsin capitol, an organizer exclusively told Breitbart News.

Thomas Leager and “Madison Marie” had created a page to announce details for the protest in Madison, which is scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m. Central.

Thousands of Facebook users had indicated on the page that they would be attending, while thousands more said they were “interested.”

And then, suddenly, the page was gone.

“They just took it down,” Leager told Breitbart News.

“We made a second one, but word is already out,” he said of the new one available here. “So, it’s still going to be a huge event.”

Leager said he did not receive a notification or a stated reason from Facebook for the page being removed.

On Monday, Breitbart News reported:

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says that posts and pages attempting to organize protests against stay-at-home orders will be banned as “misinformation.”

The Facebook CEO confirmed that the posts would be banned to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on a segment of Good Morning America.

Stephanopoulos asked Zuckerberg how the company deals “with the fact that Facebook is now being used to organize a lot of these protests to defy social distancing guidelines in states. If somebody trying to organize something like that, does that qualify as harmful misinformation?”

“We do classify that as harmful misinformation and we take that down,” confirmed Zuckerberg, while at the same time saying that it’s important “that people can debate policies.”

The Wisconsin Department of Administration denied a permit request to hold the protest, claiming it is in violation of Gov. Tony Evers’ “Safer at Home” order.

“I personally feel disappointed, because the right to peacefully assemble should still apply,” organizer Madison Elmer told Madison365.

“DOA will deny permit requests for events that violate the ‘Safer at Home’ order,” DOA representative Molly Vidal told the site.

“DOA will also exercise its authority to deny a permit if the event poses a hazard to the safety of the public.”

Vidal anticipates people will not stay in their cars, as they have done in Michigan. She said:

I personally don’t support the ‘stay-in-your-car’ to protest. It’s an inconvenience to other people who actually have somewhere to be. What if an emergency vehicle needs to get through to someone at the rally? … The speakers at the rally also need to be heard.

Breitbart News will be livestreaming from the protest on Friday afternoon.

Kyle Olson is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter and like him on Facebook.