The popular Facebook page ‘Het Oude ‘s-Hertogenbosch’ about the history of the city has been offline for almost a month. This is due to a photo from 1930 of the Sinterklaas party, which also showed a Zwarte Piet. Jos Willems, who manages the page, is quite disappointed: “Ten years of work gone to waste.”
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, took the page followed by more than 14,500 people offline on December 7. The photo showed a family celebrating Sinterklaas in a living room.
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Jos Willems: “We discussed in detail whether we should post this photo, but it is our history after all. After all, museums also have paintings about the slavery past that are now looked at with disdain. It is part of our cultural heritage. no racist motive.”
The page’s inbox was flooded with reports of “incorrect language.” Moments later, the page was blocked by Facebook. The administrator was given the chance to fill out a form for a statement, but achieved the opposite. A few days later, the page no longer existed. “Since that time I have been trying to get in touch with Facebook. There is no getting through,” says Willems.
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It took Willems ten years to expand the page to 14,500 followers. The fact that the page is suddenly deleted, without Facebook having given a clear explanation, is a sledgehammer for him. Willems wants the page back and tries to warn other historical pages with media attention. “I think we’ve tried just about everything in the past month, without success.”
on Instagram is the page ‘the old ‘s-Hertogenbosch’ also still active. Willems removed the photo in question himself.
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