https://web.archive.org/web/20250127020059/https://distrowat...

I do confirm that i explicitly tested this with my super unused facebook account, just stating that i was testing restrictions on talking about Linux, the text was: """I don't often (or ever) post anything on Facebook, but when I do, it's to check if they really, as announced on hckrnews, are restricting discussing Linux. So here's a few links to trigger that: https://www.qubes-os.org/downloads/ ... https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/""" and indeed within seconds I got the following warning: """ We removed your post The post may use misleading links or content to trick people to visit, or stay on, a website. """. This is one massive wow considering how much Facebook runs on Linux.

Facebook has been blocking distrowatch at least part of the time for three years now, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29529312

I've been perplexed for years, I wonder if it went unnoticed all this time or they reverted then reimplement the ban.

Distrowatch was blocked for linking to an AV-flagged privoxy 4.0.0 tarball. The same kind of anti-malware blocking you'd expect for a mass-market, non-technical audience. Nothing to do with "speech" or Linux in general.

Some context: https://sourceforge.net/p/forge/site-support/26448/

> Starting on January 19, 2025 Facebook's internal policy makers decided that Linux is malware and labelled groups associated with Linux as being "cybersecurity threats".

That's quite the statement to make without any source to back it up; I wonder what the evidence for this is.

Ok, what's the true story?

It is obviously allowed to discuss Linux. There is plenty of discussion about Linux on Facebook, including some about the recent "ban".

My guess is that some automated scanner found something wrong about the linked page. Maybe there is some link to a "hacking"-oriented distro, maybe some torrents, some dubious comment, etc... Probably a false positive, it happens.

Somewhat ironic given that actual linux packages are mirrored there.

http://www.fedora.mirror.facebook.net/

Didn't Zuck recently announce that he's getting rid of fact checkers, on the pretext that the parties hired to do fact checking are biased and introduce censorship and unfair false positives that get accounts shut down?

Was it just a cost reduction: fact checking takes effort and those checkers have to be paid? With the result being situations like this?

I recall a headline from (checks notes) 2014. Linux users are extremists according to the NSA (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/nsa-linux-journal-extrem...).

I imagine something about that caused certain lists to be populated in certain ways, and no linux user cares enough about Facebook to help them correct the problem.

Interesting. Same Facebook, refuses take action on reports submitted on fake accounts created to spam people and harassment videos.

Their filters are comically bad. I belong to a Selectric Typewriter enthusiats group and we keep having to re-word things so they don't go into a black hole. Typewriter parts like "operational shaft" or "type ball" or even brand names of gun cleaners and lubricants that are popular with typewriter folks will cause a post not to appear.

I think they're wrong about the policy. It's more likely that the policy is "let's run the moderation bots unattended to save costs" and is actually site agnostic.

It's just some "AI" hallucinating.

Well, my confidence in the owner of this company is as high as... so I am not surprised that if he is paid (I have no idea this os the case in this very situation), he will no wonder do what the money dictates without any consideration whatsoever. Did anyone see the ridiculous change he made after years of selling (at least in Europe) fact checking, following censorship and teaming up, the scandal selling data to influence an election before. I do not expect anything nice from this leadership. That is why I stopped using Facebook years ago as much as I could.

So this is what Zuck meant when he said Meta was "getting back to its roots"? (And I thought he was talking about reviving Facemash)

I'm not convinced this is intentional. I think their auto-moderation stuff is just buggy lately. To illustrate part of why I say that:

Yesterday I tried to submit a link to a Youtube video of the Testament song "Native Blood". Nothing terribly controversial about that, and I'm nearly 100% sure I've posted that song before with no problems. But it kept getting denied with some "link not allowed because blah, blah" error.

So is "Native Blood" banned on FB? Well, I tried a link to a different video of the same song, and was able to submit it just fine. This feels like a bug to me, and I wouldn't be surprised if similar bugs were interfering with other people trying to post stuff.

Granted that's just speculation so take this for what it's worth.

Surely that's the result of a rogue moderator's overreach.

Like the others have mentioned, I don't think this is anything more sinister than AI moderation gone wild.

Maybe it is about time that we stop relying on closed gardens, censored and managed on a whim, and start reclaiming our internet and freedom back, publishing in open platforms?

This is the trouble with automation. It's clear this isn't a malicious post, it just matched some keywords their moderation bot identified as such.

I think a lot of the censorship problems would be resolved if they just shut the bots off and relied on user flagging. Does that require a lot more people? Sure. But the long-run result would be far more people would use and trust these networks (covering the revenue of hiring moderators). I know I'd be a lot happier if there was a thinking human deciding my fate than a random script that only a few people know the inner-workings of.

As-is, it seems like a lot of these social networks are just shooting themselves in the foot just to avoid costs and get a false sense of control over the problem.

No, Facebook is Not Censoring "Linux", Only "DistroWatch".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOdMTS6XVu4

Sounds like it is DistroWatch that is being censored, and not the entire Linux ecosystem.

All the Linux reviews that I have been warned about or have been removed have been links to DistroWatch.

https://youtu.be/xOdMTS6XVu4?si=BzT8MufRwxe-Tvba

The cost of pissing of devs is so high, why cant companies just knuckle under- stop attacking add-blocking browsers like firefox or dev-operating systems. Why would you want to enter that world of pain of getting a ton of adversaries with while balancing on stack o swiss-cheese and duct tape? What is going wrong in those decision maker heads.

Facebook is just a website. Move on!

Facebook is a cyber security threat.

Didn't Mark Zuckerberg say he would reduce censorship on FB just a few weeks ago?

What am I missing here? Why would anyone go to Facebook to discuss Linux?

I thought Zuckerberg was removing any fact checkers and platform censoring. I'm thoroughly confused. But maybe since Zuckerbergs death the company changed directions again.

Can't sell Linux users AI.

Inability to market directly is antithesis to Facebook and its ilk.

Linux gives users control. That is the very last thing anyone in power wants anyone else to have.

I'm genuinely surprised that people were using facebook of all things to discuss Linux distros.

The idea of having to wade through AI generated pictures of Shrimp Jesus and my mad uncle posting about his latest attempts to turn lead into gold (yes, really) to find out about new distros to try seems very alien to me.

Wonder if someone used "qubes" as a way to work around a ban on "pubes" and the filter thought it was porn?

There's no excuse for Facebook's behavior, but... Who savvy enough to use Linux also uses Facebook?

I am getting no response on that link.

It makes sense

I assume Facebook doesn't want anything posted on FB that can't be turned into a racist diatribe. There's not a whole lot of racism potential in Kernel tuning.

Maybe you could squeeze in anti-Finnish rant about Linus, but it would be minimal

Interesting, lets just see what Facebook runs on...

> Starting on January 19, 2025 Facebook's internal policy makers decided that Linux is malware

I'm glad someone finally said it.

I get blocked anytime I share my github project.

For information X and Meta are not Social Network but Identity Tracing Network.

Give their database to bot for search and destroy and you will understand by how many will survive.

Good luck!

After the ethnic cleaning of the Linux maintainers list I would say I'm not impressed

Lol. So glad they let literal lies and propaganda going with community notes but keep something usefull. Garbage as always.

Welcome to 2020 Facebook, except they're coverage of valid topics to ban and censor has expanded more broadly now. This might've been avoided had more of its users sent a message 4-5 years ago that social media censorship isn't acceptable in a society that prides itself on free speech.

discuss GNU instead... or maybe microcontrollers

Perhaps they've become closer buddies with MICROS~1. I wouldn't be surprised if they did this in exchange for "AI" compute, i.e. that losing the Linux audience is worth less than being seen favourably by elder oligarchs.

No one, more than linux users, cares about privacy and freedom. What is even the point of using crapbook? Everyone in linux community is either hanging out on IRC or matrix or have self hosted forums

Another great reason to not use Facebook or any other social media.

My wife was temporarily banned for a photo of a marble statue. My mother receives invitations to groups that share photos of migrants drowned in the Mediterranean. Don't use Facebook, and certainly don't depend on it.

Edit: Recently, a lot of associations working to prevent HIV, sexually-transmitted diseases and family planning have been progressively de-listed, or their content blocked and their accounts banned, all over the world on all META platforms. This is the true face of freedom of expression according to META and its “community rules”.

Meta censorship of abortion pill content (french) : https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/podcasts/veille-sanit...

Facebook seems to be going really heavy handed with moderation. They also blocked some wikimedia sites like https://meta.wikimedia.org and https://species.wikimedia.org

@dang: I do not know why this is flagged, but I think it's a significant development and it shouldn't be.

Even LWN is covering it.

https://lwn.net/Articles/1006328/

If I'm reading right, the same facebook who announced a week or so ago that they where scaling back all moderation and validation around online safety, are now putting a blanket ban on users discussing such a fundamental aspect of modern technology that facebook itself runs on it?

If this is a genuine policy, I'm at a complete loss to understand Facebook's stance on anything.

This should not be flagged.

Post itself is a little light on evidence, but there are people here already who've tried to post Linuxey things, and have seen it in action.

I thought they were going to go full free speech. /s

Seriously, if you haven’t already, sign up for a Mastodon account. This is the motivation you need. Encourage some friends and family members to connect with you there.

Why is this submission flagged?

Dump Facebook.

My hypothesis is that they're now censoring things that seem "lefty".

Bot or ML gone wrong and it misunderstood the mention of Linux when associated with bad things and just equated them?

this is why content moderation is a really bad idea. the false positives are going to dominate any moderation you do.

I didn't notice. Maybe because I have a long list of facebook domains in my hosts.deny.