Facebook page Critical Spectator has been taken down by the social media platform, its creator Michael Petraeus revealed in a post on his personal Facebook page.

"Cancel crowd" got his page unpublished

Blaming the "cancel crowd" for getting his page unpublished, Petraeus lamented that "this is the world we live in".

Police report made against Critical Spectator

The deplatforming of Critical Spectator from Facebook came a day after The Online Citizen editor Terry Xu made a police report against the self-styled commentary page, saying the Polish national has "clear intent to influence the election" with his comments on political candidates and party policies.

Petraeus had in turn hit back at Xu, saying the latter had hired Malaysians to write articles on "Singaporean politics".

Previously, a number of pro-People's Action Party Facebook pages have also been taken down, such as "Fabrications against the PAP".

Facebook's response

Facebook, in response to media queries, told Mothership that it has "taken action on several accounts and Pages in Singapore for violating [their] policies".

"This is based on the violating behaviour of these accounts and Pages and not based on the content they posted," a Facebook company spokesperson said.

Mothership understands that as part of the social media giant's efforts to protect the integrity of the election, they have taken the following actions such as

• removing fake accounts;
• reducing the distribution of false news;
• maintaining civic integrity through greater ad transparency;
• finding and removing sophisticated threat actors; and
• supporting an informed electorate.

Top image adapted via Michael Petraeus's Facebook