Facebook has been accused of censoring the posts of pro-democracy supporters in Hong Kong, suspending accounts or limiting access to the world’s biggest social-media platform over comments critical of the government, according to users who say they have been targeted.

Owners and administrators of several Facebook pages and groups told Apple Daily that they have been shut down, alleging that the social media giant does “not want us to communicate with anyone.” Operators of accounts on Instagram, the picture-driven platform also owned by the social-media giant, complained of similar experiences.

Administrators of online shop Uclopia.hk, which has over 20,000 followers on Instagram, said their page has been suspended since leaving a comment on a post by Apple Daily criticizing the police in September.

The shop has been sharing pro-democracy posts since August last year. It hadn’t suffered any repercussions until the September incident, when Facebook said that it had violated the company’s community standards and advertising policies, Brian, the administrator of the store’s social-media site, told Apple Daily. The company’s Instagram account, which was linked to its Facebook account, was also restricted – from reaching out to 20,000 followers to just 1,000.

Uclopia lodged a formal complaint with Facebook, only to be told that the decision was final, said Brian. An attempt to open a new account using the same computer failed, he said, adding that he had to use a VPN — virtual private network — to mask the company’s IP address and a different email address to regain access to the platform.

Canto-pop singer Tommy Yuen, who has been vocal about Hong Kong politics and took part in last year’s rallies, said his Facebook page was suspended for the first time in April and that he only regained access after his friend contacted the group’s headquarters in the United States. He has restrained himself from sharing posts that could be deemed as “hate speech” by the platform, but on Nov. 3 his page was suspended again after he backed Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election.

Social-media companies have had to tighten their control over users’ posts as they try to weed out fake news from genuine content on their platforms, said Francis Fong, honorary president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation. Facebook is likely to remain sensitive toward political comments until controversy over the election fades, said King-wa Fu, a professor at HKU’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre.

Meanwhile, pro-Beijing Facebook group Save HK, which has more than 200,000 followers, was suspended on Sunday night. The group’s operator, the pro-Beijing political party Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, urged users to migrate to its WeChat page in order not to lose contact.

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