The right-wing Confederation party has enjoyed a recent surge in the polls and has now succeeded in having its Facebook account restored, although it is still being sidelined by much of Poland’s mainstream media.
The Confederation party’s attorney, Michał Wawer, told Onet.pl news outlet that a year ago a Polish court had ordered Facebook to lift its ban on the Confederation’s account pending the resolution of a legal dispute. However, it was very difficult to get Meta, Facebook’s parent company, to actually implement the court’s decision.
At Wednesday’s meeting with Meta, the party finally learned that its profile would be unblocked. The original decision to suspend the Confederation party’s account was taken after it was accused of violating rules with regard to COVID-19 misinformation and hate speech. Confederation as a party opposed lockdowns and the pressure to get vaccinated.
The party sued Facebook demanding an apology and financial compensation. According to the party, the decision to unblock its account means that honest competition between political parties has been restored, as access to social media is critical in the modern age for parties to be able to communicate with voters.
Poland’s digital affairs minister, Janusz Cieszyński, expressed satisfaction at the decision and stated that “putting pressure on (the company) made sense,” claiming that the Polish government had successfully intervened in the dispute.
Confederation, however, is skeptical whether such an intervention actually took place. They pointed to the fact that Poland’s public broadcaster, TVP, known to be controlled by the ruling conservatives, has excluded Confederation for years.
Meanwhile, Poland’s alternative party of the right has been doing well in recent opinion polls.
According to the latest survey by IBRiS pollster taken after the liberal opposition’s mass march and rally on June 4, the party has more than 12 percent of the vote. Since neither the liberal opposition nor the ruling conservatives have enough support to have a majority in the future parliament, this would mean that Confederation would hold the balance of power after this autumn’s general election.
