Our Facebook page is still “suspended” although the declared three days of our punishment – for “violating” its “community standards” by posting a link to a documentary on the spread of sharia in Britain – are over.

This is the notice we have tried and failed to place today on Facebook:

We exist to criticize religion, including the religion of Leftism – one of the two worst. The other “worst”, equally appalling, is Islam.

If we are to be suspended for criticizing Islam – and soon it will probably be for criticizing the Left – we have these choices:

(1) We can become self-censoring to try and avoid suspension. In other words, cave to Facebook’s tyranny, accept limits to our freedom of expression. This would be to concede a victory to Facebook, and to frustrate the purpose for which we exist. So obviously we will not do it.

(2) We can abandon using Facebook immediately. This too would be giving in to Facebook’s bigotry. So we won’t do that either.

(3) Carry on as usual, risking frequent suspension. The Facebook algorithm that censors us is probably programmed to effect a policy of “X strikes and you’re out” – meaning the end of our page.

We were warned three months ago by one-who-knows (not a Facebook employee) that we probably have about three months to go before we will be censored out of existence. That censorship has started. Four days ago we were abruptly suspended for three days for “violating” Facebook’s “community standards”. Beware the word “community” in all political contexts. It implies that the Group is always more important than the Individual, and that is the notion at the heart of all collectivist ideologies.

One of our highly valued supportive commenters informed our readers on our behalf (since we could not write a thing or even “like” a comment) that we were being suspended. If our page were to be abruptly terminated, no notice to our readers would be possible of course. And this could happen, because we are choosing the third way we have listed: to carry on as usual, risking suspension and elimination. There would be no sense in doing anything else. It is what we are for.

So we are posting this to warn our readers that we might disappear from time to time or even permanently. If we are abolished, it will be entirely against our will. We’ll be very sorry indeed to lose our much appreciated supporters, constructive critics, like-thinkers and followers who help to make our page a valuable intellectual resource that pays the price that must be paid for freedom – eternal vigilance.

As we say in our Articles of Reason on our website – which will survive, and to which we hope our Facebook readers will turn if we lose this page:

Many a belief can survive persecution but not critical examination.

That is why they fear us and try to silence us.

3 hours later: Our “suspension” is over. We can post again.

We expect that next time we will be shut out for longer.