What's interesting is that they simultaneously shut down comments and banned me from the group. I learned of this through friends who are still in the group.

For the curious, the root of the issue was a discussion I initiated about a new tax measure that would cost homeowners in the town this group serves thousands of dollars per year. The administrator removed the post and banned me from the group. Why? Because the taxes collected by that measure benefit the union they belong to. In other words, the intent was to silence discussion that could reveal this to people who don't normally read the fine print.

This led to a private discussion where I explained that this was relevant content and that instantly banning me from the group was an overreaction. I did not know, until muy later, that they stood to personally benefit if people voted for this measure. The conversation contained no threats or nasty language. If you read it, it looks and sounds exactly as this post.

This event made me realize that Facebook provides no recourse whatsoever to deal with something like this. Group administrators and moderators can do and say anything they want without repercussions. The only way to even attempt something would require hiring an attorney to go after them for defamation. Facebook remains immune due to current legislation. The group administrators and moderators, not so.

Imagine someone creating a group on FB to serve as the source of news and information for a town. Imagine these people then engaging in blocking any information that does not align with their political stance or might not benefit them financially. We are not talking about pro-democrats vs. pro-republicans here. That's not the story. It's about filtering discussions of measures people will have to vote on to disallow conversations about those they do not agree with.

It seems truly twisted that Facebook can be used this way. A person or people take ownership of a community group, twist it to distort reality and, beyond that, ban and defame anyone who they disagree with.

Does anyone on HN have a contact in Facebook who might be interested in looking into this matter to right a very real wrong and, perhaps, learn from it to improve similar community groups?

I've spoken to attorneys. A defamation lawsuit is a really nasty thing. People can lose their home and more over these things. I have no interest in doing that to someone else (two attorneys have told me this is a solid case of defamation). The correct outcome in this case should be that the group needs to be taken away from them and they should be permanently banned from re-entering it in any way, perhaps even from starting any other group or page on FB.

Thanks.