Facebook Admits Linux-Post Crackdown Was 'In Error', Fixes Moderation Error

Tom's Hardware reports: Facebook's heavy-handed censorship of Linux groups and topics was "in error," the social media juggernaut has admitted. Responding to reports earlier this week, sparked by the curious censorship of the eminently wholesome DistroWatch, Facebook contacted PCMag to say that it had made a mistake and that the underlying issue had been rectified.

"This enforcement was in error and has since been addressed. Discussions of Linux are allowed on our services," said a Meta rep to PCMag. That is the full extent of the statement reproduced by the source... Copenhagen-hosted DistroWatch says it has appealed against the Community Standards-triggered ban shortly after it noticed it was in effect (January 19). PCMag received the Facebook admission of error on January 28. The latest statement from DistroWatch, which now prefers posting on Mastodon, indicates that Facebook has lifted the DistroWatch links ban.
More details from PCMag: Meta didn't say what caused the crackdown in the first place. But the company has been revamping some of its content moderation and plans to replace its fact-checking methodology with a user-driven Community Notes, similar to X. "We're also going to change how we enforce our policies to reduce the kind of mistakes that account for the vast majority of the censorship on our platforms," the company said earlier this month, in another irony.

"Up until now, we have been using automated systems to scan for all policy violations, but this has resulted in too many mistakes and too much content being censored that shouldn't have been," Meta added in the same post.

Re:a modest proposal

[Z00L00K]

No, it's the entertainment industry that drives this, they don't want people to use anything that they can't control.

Re:a modest proposal

[trylak]

The left like Mark Zuckerberg who was on stage at Trump's inauguration?

Re:

[destined2fail1990]

You're right. Same battle since the early 2000s. Still waiting on DVD/Bluray movies to work on Linux. Hell, HDMI doesn't even work on open source Linux GPUs, IIRC.

Re:

[evil_aaronm]

And the right will go full nazi. Oop - too late, already did.

Re:a modest proposal

[Moryath]

Too late. Zuckerberg went Full Nazi. My feed's been full of "sponsored" alt-right and Nazi crap since January 20th. And he unbanned actual terrorist accounts like "Libs of Tiktok" that have repeatedly engaged in doxxing and SWATting terrorist attacks.

Re:

[henrik stigell]

Well, my feed isn't. So the problem is you and what you click on, not Facebook per se. Grow up and take some responsibility for your clicks.

Re:

[Moryath]

Nope. Nothing changed in my behavior. The feed just suddenly flipped into nutsy cuckoo nazi land on Jan 20th, when nothing of the sort had been showing on the 19th.

Re:

[henrik stigell]

You know it is BS so stop lying.

Re:

[Moryath]

Oh and all of it is showing under the "Sponsored" tag. Which means it's FB pushing it as "ads."

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Posts on Faceboot are automatically tagged, sponsored or not.

When you interact with them (post a comment or use ANY reacc) their tags are copied to your account. They show up under "interests" which you have to dig three or four clicks into settings to find. When you get there, you will likely find that you have thousands of interests assigned to you.

When Facebook decides what to show you, sponsored or not, it is based on those tags. There may also be counts associated with them, but if so, Faceboot does no

Re:

[mjwx]

Well, my feed isn't. So the problem is you and what you click on, not Facebook per se. Grow up and take some responsibility for your clicks.

I strongly suspect if I turned off FB Purity, Adblock and Privacy Badger I'd be getting something similar... Something geared more towards the UK perhaps but no doubt equally as scummy (FB et al. have been caught before trying to circumvent UK advertising laws with regards to gambling).

I've found that FB advertising often has nothing to do with what you click on, it tends to push whatever is profitable (gambling, crypto scams) so I've no doubt political lies are right up there... which is why I never use

Re:

[henrik stigell]

What makes you think these addons influence what ads FB shows to you? They don't, they only hide stuff. If I ever get ads about crypto or gambling on my phone app, it is VERY rarely. Again, the ads you see is mostly a result on what you click. Sometimes they test some completely random stuff to see if you react. I mostly get ads for gallery openings and art related stuff.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

I use Faceboot on my desktop with FB Purity (and other tools) and on my phone with only the usual phone stuff like ublock origin. And my unfiltered feed is not full of alt-right and Nazi crap. Mostly it's a bunch of AI faux engineering feeds.

Facebook shows you stuff like the stuff you interact with...

Nazis

[Iamthecheese]

Holy crap, can you people PLEASE stop calling everyone Nazis? You're not just driving people away from your cause, you're not just creating an echo chamber that makes you less effective at pushing important issues. You're weakening humanity's understanding of what Nazis were and how they came to be. Every time you call Trump a Nazi someone who has no understanding of history says to himself, "Oh, that's a Nazi? Must not have been too bad."

Re: a modest proposal

[databasecowgirl]

I don't think those words mean what you think they do. That not a Modest Proposal at all. Quit the opposite. I'm sure Swift is disappointed and would insist on moderators to aggressively counter any threat to masculine energies by being more proactive in ending this DEI censorship that's ruining our great nation. Can't just allow anyone to say anything anti-American. It goes against the basic principles of freedom.

This is America. We are free. It's not censoring, that word is only allowed in the context

Re: a modest proposal

[databasecowgirl]

Thinking about it and learning that the Trump boys are still poaching in other countries, this time Italy, and Musk actually is considering UK citizenship the Modest Proposal is no longer possible in they way l attempted and yours is a mastework in the Swiftian tradition and actually spot on an much funnier. Kudos.

Remind me again, why use Facebook?

[OffTheLip]

The Meta apology tour is in full swing these days. I don't have a Facebook account but the few times I've visited the site to check a business out I am badgered to login. No thanks.

Re:

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

That's nothing new, they have always badgered people to login.
I have never had a Facebook account but had heard that there are private pages (you need to login) and public pages (they'd like you to login), and if that's the wrong terminology, unlucky.
As for

That is the full extent of the statement reproduced by the source...

hardly surprising if they have had as many false positives as it sounds. If they have to issue thousands of apologies, they are liable to be rather terse.

This whole thing is fishy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone that uses Linux be on Facebook?

Re:

[znrt]

adventists of the linux on the desktop year church. wait until they find out about ai influencers ...

Re:This whole thing is fishy.

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Why would anyone that uses Linux be on Facebook?

Some restaurants have their opening hours (and menus) on Facebook, a couple of clubs I'm a member of use Facebook to communicate. It's quite convenient for people who do not have the know-how or time to maintain a website, and that's quite irritating for people who do not have an account.

Re:

[computer_tot]

Most people don't run Linux for ideological reasons and don't see any contradiction between using one and the other.

Re:This whole thing is fishy.

[sarren1901]

We may not use Linux just for ideological reasons but I know I do my best to avoid Microsoft, Apple and Google for both practical and ideological reasons.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

I run Linux partly for ideological reasons, but none of those reasons relate to Faceboot in any way.

Faceboot also uses a lot of Linux, though obviously not for ideological reasons. They use it because it's good and cheap.

I don't use Faceboot for discussing light-hearted things, only for serious shit, and marketplace. I hate that marketplace is a thing (especially since it has the worst interface of any commerce site I use) but it is.

Nicely shows a problem with AI "moderation".

[gweihir]

Anything a bit more special may just get blocked without any good reasons.

Are they going to stop cracking down

[rsilvergun]

On people searching for reproductive health care? I'm guessing probably not. Also I'm sure they'll be happy to report you to the Gestapo if you are in a state where reproductive health services are criminalized or before much longer the entire country..

Re:

[retchdog]

heheheh cuntry. hahahaha.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Indeed. Who's the idiot who decided to call abortion "reproductive healthcare" in the first place?

Unfortunately, not your parents.

I'm not saying abortion

[rsilvergun]

Because I'm not talking about just abortion. If you think the Republican party is going to stop at abortion and not take away things like birth control or condoms and vasectomies you aren't paying any attention to what they're saying in public.

And what's more by criminalizing some reproductive healthcare doctors refused to do it because of the risk of 20 or 30 years in jail for following science. This means we end up with a massive shortage of doctors who can assist with it.

All reproductive health ca

Re:

[drinkypoo]

I'm not talking about just abortion

Are you using mobile? It's a very, very bad interface that can lead you to think that people are replying to comments other than the ones they actually replied to. The current owners ruined the only "good" thing about it (posting delay didn't work there because of a bug, and they fixed that) so using it is questionable at best.

Re:

[rsilvergun]

Yeah I'm on mobile but I don't think it really mattered which comment on this thread I replied to so I wasn't being too careful about it. The point stands regardless of where I'm replying. So I figured I'd reply on your thread instead of on the thread of the troll. Also I don't like to reply to trolls directly when I can avoid it. There's a guy following me around posting mod bait and I don't want to get many more attention than he already has.

These days I'm mostly just shouting into the void but there

Well, see, the filters are maintained by nerds

[93 Escort Wagon]

And it turns out they were unfamiliar with the word "penis".

Re:

[burtosis]

And it turns out they were unfamiliar with the word "penis".

Thus the expression “The pen is mightier than the sword”.

Re:

[sconeu]

Cue the Sean Conner Celebrity Jeopardy sketch.

Re:

[93 Escort Wagon]

Cue the Sean Conner Celebrity Jeopardy sketch.

And just like that, I had to go watch it...

Reminds me ...

[PPH]

... of the time Facebook cracked down on Windows discussion groups. Whoops. I guess that never happened.

Linux just doesn't have the financial clout of an advertiser like Microsoft who wishes they could wave the magic wand of censorship and make the competition go away.

Re:

[thegarbz]

This is Facebook. Never attribute to malice what could more reasonably be attributed to the dumbest m*********ers on the planet.

Re:Reminds me ...

[ISayWeOnlyToBePolite]

... of the time Facebook cracked down on Windows discussion groups. Whoops. I guess that never happened.

Linux just doesn't have the financial clout of an advertiser like Microsoft who wishes they could wave the magic wand of censorship and make the competition go away.

A quick search reveal they did crack down on gardening groups for using the word hoe and inciting violens for wanting to kill pests: https://apnews.com/article/lif... [apnews.com]

It'd surprise if there weren't more of the same.

Cynical translation

[NotEmmanuelGoldstein]

... using automated systems to scan ...

Our robots are so good at detecting misinformation and propaganda, the GOP can't say a word on Facebook. We want people to choose the amount of bribery and sabotage billionaires can inflict on the USA.

Correction

[computer_tot]

"The latest statement from DistroWatch, which now prefers posting on Mastodon, indicates that Facebook has lifted the DistroWatch links ban."

This a bit misleading. DistroWatch never had a Facebook page, so it's not a matter of "preferring" posting in one place or another. DistroWatch merely pointed out that people weren't any to post links to its website on Facebook.

DistroWatch did open a Mastodon account during the Facebook ban to give people a social media platform where they could interact and share news stories. But there was never an official DistroWatch account on Facebook.

FakeBook says Linux bad, Nazis good!

[denny_deluxe]

Zuck wants to climb into the oven first.

Fixes Moderation Error

[oldgraybeard]

What a woot! Zuck is such a ?????