Children's book publisher claims 'anti-American' bias after Facebook disables account

Facebook has permanently disabled the advertising account of conservative children's book publisher Heroes of Liberty, Fox Business reported.

Heroes of Liberty, which released its first book in November, has published biographies of President Ronald Reagan, economist Thomas Sowell, and Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett intended for children ages 7–12.

Editor Bethany Mandel announced on Twitter Monday that Facebook had permanently disabled the publisher's ads account after House of Liberty unsuccessfully appealed the original decision, which was handed down Dec. 23.

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According to a screenshot of a Facebook message Mandel provided to Fox Business, the account was disabled due to violations of Facebook's policy on "Low Quality or Disruptive Content."

This policy stipulates that ads "must not contain content leading to external landing pages that provide an unexpected or disruptive experience." This includes ads with "overly sensationalized headlines" or that lead "to landing pages that contain minimal original content and a majority of unrelated or low-quality ad content."

Mandel posted a screenshot of a Heroes of Liberty Facebook ad that did not appear to be misleading or overly sensational. The Heroes of Liberty website homepage contains no ad content.

"We had a number of negative comments on the posts and we think they reported our content. They were triggered by a children's book that portrays Ronald Reagan as a hero," Mandel tweeted. She also posted screenshots of Facebook comments criticizing Reagan and saying the biographies ought to be burned.

She also said that Heroes of Liberty had invested the majority of its advertising budget in Facebook and had lost large amounts of valuable user data.

The publisher still plans to release biographies of John Wayne, Alexander Hamilton, and Margaret Thatcher in the coming months.

Despite the choice of subjects, Mandel claims the purpose of these biographies is to teach "American values," not conservative politics.

Most contemporary children's literature is "garbage and indoctrination," Mandel told Fox Business in November, singling out Ibram X. Kendi's Antiracist Baby. After Facebook disabled the publisher's ad account, she said Facebook's motivation "isn't even anti-conservative bias, it's anti-American. Pure madness."

In addition to her role at Heroes of Liberty, Mandel is an editor at conservative online community Ricochet. She is married to Seth Mandel, who is executive editor of the right-leaning Washington Examiner magazine.

[Ed. note: This author has previously written for The Washington Examiner]