Facebook shuts down popular Nebraska Through the Lens page (2024)

Since 2013, Nebraska Through the Lens, a Facebook page created by Steve Evans of Holdrege, has attracted more than 465,000 people representing 99 countries and all 50 U.S. states.

Its daily offering of dozens of photos — from weather shots to landscapes to wildlife — have been a respite for elderly shut-ins and the elixir for a good number of homesick enlisted men and women serving their country in faraway places.

"It seems to me that this is why Facebook was invented," said Scott Shafer, a Seward resident, photo hobbyist and regular contributor to Nebraska Through the Lens.

On Tuesday, Facebook shut down the site without notice or reason, according to Evans, who has spent the last couple of days scrambling for answers and a way to get it back online.

On Wednesday, Evans was finally notified through email that the site was taken down because "Facebook's technology had identified that we had violated their community standards on intellectual property," Evans said.

He had no idea what Facebook was referring to. For years, Evans and a small team of site administrators have gone through the process of approving every picture posted — and there have been thousands. He commits at least two hours a day to approving photos.

"I couldn't even get an answer as to what intellectual property, what community standard we were violating," Evans said.

He said there were times in the site's 11 years online that he would get notified every now and then that a photo was removed for violating community standards.

"We would try to look into it to see what it was so we could learn from it," he said. "It was locked and we were told they couldn't share that information with us. So we never could even learn from those violations."

He talked to administrators from other sites this week who told him that there is no coming back from being shut down by Facebook.

By Wednesday night, after hours of online chats, hand-wringing and attempts to establish telephone contact with someone in charge of such decisions at Facebook, Evans was notified.

"I was told it was permanently deleted and there was nothing they could do," he said. "I told them they never even gave us a chance to appeal it."

Facebook did not respond to an email sent to its media relations department on Thursday.

Through the Lens sites on Facebook are not unique to Nebraska. Neighboring states like Iowa and Wyoming have them, too.

"Are they going to get shut down because of this or that?" Evans asked."We don't even understand where things went sideways other than (Facebook's) computer system. Why didn't they give us a chance to appeal the decision to an actual human?"

Evans now finds himself in a quandary. Where does he go next? He could relaunch the page, but there's no way of alerting the more than 465,000 members.

"It would have to be word of mouth," he said. "That's the only way."

Just as important, without knowing exactly what Nebraska Through the Lens did to get booted from Facebook, what's to prevent it from happening again?

"Without knowing what we did, we're risking losing another group," Evans said.

The issue of intellectual property cuts both ways, Evans said. With Nebraska Through the Lens permanently taken offline, where are the thousands of photos — some of them taken by some gifted photographers — that were posted?

"Now that Meta has removed Nebraska Through the Lens, what happens to their intellectual property that they submitted to our group?" Evans asked. "Every photo that was posted was someone's intellectual property."

Nebraska Through the Lens quickly gained popularity after Evans, a paramedic and native of Emporia, Kansas, created the site to mirror a photography site he was a member of while living in Kansas.

It was a place where the photos did the talking, where politics were checked at the door and commentary was not necessary.

"We wanted it to be a place where people could just enjoy beautiful photos and kind of interact with each other through comments, and things like that," he said. "One of the biggest feedbacks we got was, 'This was the place that I could come and just get away from the world's troubles.'"

Shafer said it was a place that stirred nostalgic pangs for some, while giving others the chance to showcase their work.

"It's an appreciation of the artistry that's presented, which is very good at times," he said.

Shafer said he once posted photos of Sunken Gardens, which prompted dozens of comments from people remembering being there with loved ones.

"I was near tears as I was reading the comments," he said. "As much as I love sharing my work, when it triggers such a fond emotional response, that's what it's all about."

Nebraska Through the Lens took on a different role when the weather got bad or fires raged.

"We almost became like a secondary news platform," he said. "We weren't reporting anything, but people were seeing the photos of events as they were happening."