Facebook users received a warning when searching for Hillsdale Online Courses earlier this month.
Courtesy | Nolan Ryan
Hillsdale College Online Courses may be associated with drug dealing, according to a warning on Facebook that has since been removed.
Facebook users searching for “Hillsdale College Online Courses” received a warning from the social media site claiming potential association with the sale of drugs, the college said in a press release Sept. 6.
“The term you searched for is sometimes associated with the sale of drugs, which isn’t allowed on Facebook,” the warning said. “If you or someone you know struggle with drug misuse, there are organizations that can help.”
Users searching for online courses no longer receive the warning, according to Director of Online Learning Jeremiah Regan.
“Their initial suggestion was that we try changing our page name to ‘Hills dale College Online Courses,’” Regan said.
A Meta agent suggested the extra space in the spelling of the college’s name in order to prevent association with drug companies, according to the press release.
“We reject that suggested course of action,” Regan said.
The college responded publicly to the warning label Sept. 5.
“Facebook is at it again!” Hillsdale College said on the social media platform X. “Anyone who searches for Hillsdale’s online courses page on Facebook sees a warning that they might be searching for terms associated with drug dealers. While we don’t deal in narcotics, our online courses are mind altering. The first one is free! (And every course after that, too.)”
The warning appeared just weeks after Meta took down the Hillsdale College Online Courses Facebook account on Aug. 19, the night before the launch date of its newest online course, “Marxism, Socialism, and Communism.”
The removal of the page and its ad content damaged the reach of the online course, the college told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“Meta claims that Hillsdale’s entire online course page was taken down for almost 100 hours because of ads they mistakenly flagged on Facebook,” Hillsdale’s Executive Director of Media Relations and Communications Emily Stack Davis told Fox News Digital. “But those same ads had been running unchanged for over a year.”
Meta reinstated the online courses account, which has more than 300,000 followers, according to an official press release from the college.
The page was taken down in error, Meta told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“Meta claimed taking down the online courses page was a mistake, but it was aptly timed to disrupt the release of our documentary,” Regan said.
The course covers the writings of Karl Marx and their historical implications, according to the course description.
“The effects of Marx’s ideas have already been seen in the histories of the Soviet Union and China,” the course description reads. “Yet Marxism remains popular among those who shape our cultural, academic, and political lives and in the popular movements pushing equity and diversity.”
Human relationships are now explained by systemic oppression of one group by another, according to the course description.
“No one owns the internet, but five companies technically do own the internet, and Meta is one of them,” Chairman of Rhetoric and Media Ethan Stoneman said. “The technology in question is like a black box, and no one can really look inside, and no one really knows how all of it works. There’ll always be plausible deniability if something like this happens. Was it censorship? Who knows?”
Regan said the college protects itself against censorship by using multiple social media sites and making different versions of ads and course trailers. This allows for the ads to be replaced if a social media site objects to one.
“In this case, though, there was no action we could take other than to persist in asking Facebook for redress, which ultimately resulted in Facebook claiming the page was taken down by mistake and restoring it,” he said.
Sophomore Molly Downie said she found it concerning that this could happen to an institution meant to allow for intellectual growth.
“I think the online courses that Hillsdale offers are such a valuable source. It’s how I’ve heard about the college,” she said.
Following the suggestion to change the account’s handle would have ruined the college’s brand name, according to Associate Professor of Economics Charles Steele.
“How do you respond to something like that? Well, it’s a little bit difficult,” Steele said. “I think the college had a very measured and sensible response. But you definitely have to push back on this.”