Despite an attempt to sabotage it via social media, a Black Lives Matter march went on as planned Thursday evening. Over 100 protesters marched around the Ohio Statehouse and continued to the Columbus Division of Police headquarters.
That morning, organizers became aware that the Facebook event page for the march had been taken down, and the account associated with it was locked. Someone had reported the event to Facebook, flagging it as involving either “violence or harmful behavior” or “hate speech.”
Facebook made no attempt to contact the organizers of the march to verify whether it would involve anything inappropriate. They just took down the page. Undeterred, organizers quickly got the word out to supporters that the event was still on.
The attempt to derail the march underscores the racial tensions in Columbus that go unspoken. Instead of engaging in an open, honest dialogue with the Black Lives Matter movement, someone decided to stay in the shadows and employ a dirty trick to try to stop the march.