Echoing Orwell’s 1984, British politicians try to ban private Facebook groups

By Tom Rogan

Published September 11, 2018 6:15pm ET

Echoing Orwell’s 1984, British politicians try to ban private Facebook groups — Lucy Powell, a Labour member of the British Parliament, speaks at an event. | (Screenshot via YouTube / Labour Party)

Beware politicians bearing constraint of speech.

Consider British Labour Party member of Parliament Lucy Powell and her new bill to restrict Facebook from allowing its forums to be set as “secret.” The “secret” access option allows group administrators to restrict those outside their forum from seeing the group’s name, description, and posts. Powell says this is unacceptable. Allowing for private forums, she says, is to enable “hate.”