Facebook accused of censoring criticism of Vietnamese Communist Official eating Gold-encrusted steak

Facebook has unblocked the hashtag #SaltBae after it became unavailable following a video of a top Vietnamese official being fed a gold-covered steak went viral. Facebook refused to comment on whether the banning of the hashtag was requested by the Communist Vietnamese government.

Salt Bae is a Turkish chef, real name Nusret Gokce, the owner of chain steakhouse Nusr-Et. A video of Vietnam’s Minister for Public Security To Lam being fed a $1,941 gold-covered tomahawk steak by the celebrity chef was posted on TikTok, and it went viral. The video was taken at Nusr-Et Steakhouse in London. Lam was in the UK for the UN Climate conference.

The video was removed from TikTok but it had already spread to other social media platforms including Facebook, which blocked the hashtag. While it was blocked, a search for the hashtag returned an error saying community standards had been violated.