Fact Check

Was 'Little Timmy Salutes the Flag' Banned by Facebook?

Facebook supposedly removed a photograph of "little Timmy" saluting the U.S. flag due to complaints from non-Americans.

Published Oct. 30, 2015

 (BYUNGSUK KO / Shutterstock.com)
Image Via BYUNGSUK KO / Shutterstock.com
Claim:
 Facebook removed an image of "Little Timmy" saluting the United States flag because "non-Americans" found it offensive.

On 25 October 2015 the Facebook page "Southern Baptists for Todd Kincannon 7" posted the above-displayed photograph and message about an image of "Little Timmy Saluting the Flag" being removed from Facebook because non-Americans found it "hateful." The post was shared more than 80,000 times within a week of its original posting, and many viewers took its message literally and accused Facebook of being anti-American over it:

The truth is that the photograph in question was never removed by Facebook. The page "Southern Baptists For Todd Kincannon 7" is a satirical group that frequently posts memes in an attempt to stir up anger among conservatives. For instance, on 1 September 2015 that page started a false rumor that the word "Denali" was a Kenyan word for "Black Power." (Viewers should also recognize the obvious cognitive dissonance of someone's posting an image to Facebook in order to inform others that the image had been banned by Facebook.)

The "Southern Baptists for Todd Kincannon 7" page does self-identify as satire, but several other ways exist to discern the site's humorous nature. The biggest tip-off comes from the Facebook page's About section which lists a porn web site (bangamidget) in place of a web site for Todd Kincannon:

todd kinncananon

Dan Evon is a former writer for Snopes.

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