Taiwanese pop star and host Aaron Yan is known for being outspoken on social media. Photo: Aaron Yan/Twitter
Taiwanese host and pop star Aaron Yan found himself the target of a temporary Facebook ban twice in a week.
The 37-year-old member of now-defunct boy band Fahrenheit took to Twitter in the wee hours of Friday (Dec 16) to upload a screenshot of his Facebook page, where a reply he made to a netizen about the war in Ukraine could not be posted.
Yan wrote in a caption accompanying the post that he suspected there was malware embedded in advertisements for porn sites.
“The last time I was blocked from commenting was also after I reported an advertisement for porn,” he wrote. “Regardless, this is the kind of person I’ll always take issue with, the kind I find the most repulsive.“
In the screenshot, Yan’s comment – “Russia and Putin, please stop” – can be seen beneath a post of a news article.
A netizen replied: “Why don’t you look at who refuses to negotiate for peace?“
Yan countered: “Negotiating for peace with an enemy that invaded your land, killed your people and took your property?
“Stop kidding. Do you have Stockholm Syndrome?” he added, referring to the condition where a captive develops positive feelings for his or her captor.
This comment, however, could not be posted.
This is not the first time Yan has been blocked from commenting on the social media platform. On Dec 11, he took to Twitter to say he was temporarily restricted from posting and commenting to protect the community from spam messages.
On Monday, he tweeted that he was able to comment on Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s page, but was still restricted from commenting on other pages. He added a screenshot of his comment – written in English – questioning Facebook’s suspension and restriction policies.
Yan is known for being outspoken on social media. Aside from often voicing his opinions on politics and current affairs, he actively engages netizens who reply to him.
His outspokenness has landed him in trouble. He was widely criticised when he said on Facebook that heavy rains caused a magnitude 6.3 earthquake that struck Hualien in 2015. This theory was debunked by experts.
Yan subsequently apologised for the post. – The Straits Times/Asia News Network
