[HN Gopher] Facebook ban on discussing Linux?
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Facebook ban on discussing Linux?
        
       Author : rogerthis
       Score  : 317 points
       Date   : 2025-01-27 10:32 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (distrowatch.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (distrowatch.com)
        
       | iefbr14 wrote:
       | I didn't notice. Maybe because I have a long list of facebook
       | domains in my hosts.deny.
        
       | Igrom wrote:
       | Surely that's the result of a rogue moderator's overreach.
        
         | jdxcode wrote:
         | I agree, overzealousness sounds like the most likely reason for
         | this.
         | 
         | > 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".
         | 
         | The author gives no evidence to back up on this claim.
        
           | paulnpace wrote:
           | > The author gives no evidence to back up on this claim.
           | 
           | How can one provide evidence that something is not being
           | displayed on a website? Isn't this, like, a formal fallacy,
           | or something?
           | 
           | > We've been hearing all week from readers who say they can
           | no longer post about Linux on Facebook or share links to
           | DistroWatch. Some people have reported their accounts have
           | been locked or limited for posting about Linux.
        
             | fau wrote:
             | You've implied it's impossible to give such evidence and
             | then you've immediately proved yourself wrong by giving it.
             | 
             | But anyway, they're not asking for evidence that something
             | isn't being displayed. They're asking for evidence that
             | '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"'.
        
           | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
           | > I agree, overzealousness sounds like the most likely reason
           | for this.
           | 
           | Who was overzealous if not one or more internal policy
           | makers?
        
             | bagels wrote:
             | Machine learning algorithms? Someone hacked Facebook to
             | block Linux? So, there are other options besides
             | overzealous policy makers.
        
         | rnd0 wrote:
         | I attempted to post the distrowatch link to my feed and it was
         | blocked as 'spam'.
         | 
         | That seems pretty automated to me.
        
         | blast wrote:
         | Or some overly optimistic attempt at AI moderation.
        
         | not2b wrote:
         | Their "moderators" are bots, not humans, so it seems that the
         | bots have "decided" that Linux-related links are malware or
         | something.
        
       | oneeyedpigeon wrote:
       | > 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.
        
         | paulnpace wrote:
         | [flagged]
        
           | oneeyedpigeon wrote:
           | I can't speak for anyone else, it just seems that statement
           | is a very specific accusation with nothing backing it up. I'm
           | curious, that's all. It is very much possible that there's
           | some evidence of policy makers discussing this, or even a
           | public statement; nothing to do with "proving a negative".
        
           | jsnell wrote:
           | How is this asking to prove a negative?
        
           | soneil wrote:
           | Surely this is entirely the opposite of proving a negative?
           | It's a direct, testable, provable claim.
        
         | polotics wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | zdp7 wrote:
           | I just tried the same two URLs. I also got a message saying
           | the post was removed.
        
           | krisoft wrote:
           | A user who never posts anything suddenly posting a message
           | containing urls might in itself be a signal that something is
           | weird. It would be an interestint test to post something not
           | linux related and see how that fares.
        
             | Vrondi wrote:
             | Any user ever posting URLs should never ever be removed.
             | The Web should be allowed to exist. This is utterly
             | despicable behavior.
        
               | quesera wrote:
               | Insanity. Absolutely. Maybe.
               | 
               | Clearly there's a need for some kind of bad-url blocker.
               | You don't want compromised accounts (or clueless people)
               | sharing nefarious links to trusted friends.
               | 
               | And clearly blocking distrowatch etc is bizarre
               | overreach. And probably not intended behaviour -- it just
               | makes no sense.
               | 
               | The web exists just fine. Using Facebook as a front end
               | to the web is a terrible idea though.
        
         | lofenfew wrote:
         | They are the source. A journo could write an article and
         | mention distrowatch as where they got their information from.
         | If you don't trust them - great, you can do your own research.
         | 
         | > I wonder what the evidence for it is
         | 
         | Maybe "Any posts mentioning DistroWatch and multiple groups
         | associated with Linux and Linux discussions have either been
         | shut down or had many of their posts removed" and "We've been
         | hearing all week from readers who say they can no longer post
         | about Linux on Facebook or share links to DistroWatch. Some
         | people have reported their accounts have been locked or limited
         | for posting about Linux"
         | 
         | What do you think evidence consists of if not that?
        
           | MrDresden wrote:
           | I thoroughly dislike Facebook as much as the next person, but
           | none of what you quoted constitutes evidence for a ban on
           | discussing Linux on the platform.
           | 
           | Reading the post, it sounds like this may rather be because
           | of incorrect categorization of DistroWatch and links to it
           | than an outright ban on Linux discussion. So yet another
           | issue with Facebook's content moderation methods.
        
           | valicord wrote:
           | The evidence shows that Facebook is blocking Linux related
           | posts, while the initial "policy makers decided" claim is
           | significantly stronger and is not supported by anything. Much
           | more obvious explanation is that some buggy ML classifier has
           | added the distrowatch website to the spam list which triggers
           | automated enforcement without any policy maker involvement.
        
             | anigbrowl wrote:
             | The purpose of a system is what it does. If this behavior
             | is happening because nobody with authority cares to do
             | anything about it, that's also a decision. I never
             | understand why people rush to make excuses for these huge
             | companies awash in resources with no real accountability or
             | customer support.
        
             | jorams wrote:
             | If "some buggy ML classifier" is allowed to make decisions
             | that trigger broad enforcement, that classifier is, for all
             | intents and purposes, a policy maker. The claim made by the
             | article is somewhat broad relative to the evidence
             | presented, but whether policy decisions are automated or
             | not doesn't really matter.
        
             | blasphemers wrote:
             | The evidence only shows that fb is blocking distrowatch
             | links
        
               | vkou wrote:
               | And it's doing so because of, or as a consequence of
               | their policies.
               | 
               | If it's a consequence of a 'buggy ML classifier', well,
               | it's FB's _policy_ to use one for censorship.
               | 
               | You can't launder accountability with an 'It's AI' black
               | box.
        
           | nwienert wrote:
           | Three claims are there:
           | 
           | - Facebook is censoring this content
           | 
           | - They decided Linux is malware
           | 
           | - They label groups associated with Linux as "cybersecurity
           | threats"
           | 
           | The first one they seem to give evidence for the second two
           | seem to be assumptions.
        
             | onli wrote:
             | There is a screenshot in the article of the appeal,
             | confirming 1 and 2. Three follows logically.
        
           | thekevan wrote:
           | That's circular logic and none of it is evidence.
           | 
           | "A bad thing is happening and the evidence of it happening is
           | that I said it's happening."
           | 
           | By the way, I love DistroWatch and do think FB is messing
           | with their posts. But there's no evidence to show if it's a
           | new policy, a glitch in the moderation or an internal screw
           | up.
        
         | dec0dedab0de wrote:
         | I assumed that part was conjecture. However, if you define
         | "internal policy makers" broadly from the users perspective,
         | then it's provably true from the result.
         | 
         | I get that it is worded like it was people in a boardroom
         | making a decision after having a debate. However an overworked
         | admin, or an AI Moderator could just as easily be lumped
         | together as "internal policy makers" from the users
         | perspective.
        
         | buyucu wrote:
         | the evidence is that facebook is blocking this content.
        
       | lexicality wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | UntitledNo4 wrote:
         | I want to know more about your uncle. I'm not on Facebook, but
         | that would make me consider joining...
        
           | lexicality wrote:
           | It's entertaining in the abstract but fairly depressing when
           | he's telling you in person that he's spending his children's
           | inheritance on turning lead slightly yellow. Still, on the
           | bright side, he seems to have stopped talking about the
           | "globalists" so much.
        
             | Detrytus wrote:
             | Globalists are history now, Trump will take care of them :)
        
         | knowitnone wrote:
         | I'm sure lead technically can be turned into gold or anything
         | for that matter with enough energy
        
           | brink wrote:
           | Your electricity bill might be greater than the value of the
           | produced gold though.
        
             | ben_w wrote:
             | You can indeed turn lead into gold; it will indeed be more
             | expensive than it is worth; also the gold will be
             | radioactive.
        
               | cobbal wrote:
               | Gold is sold by weight, so those extra neutrons are pure
               | profit.
        
               | mr_toad wrote:
               | Unfortunately all the heavy isotopes of gold are unstable
               | and will decay in a few months.
        
           | monocasa wrote:
           | Several groups actually have both intentionally and
           | unintentionally.
           | 
           | In most cases they're pretty radioactive isotopes of gold.
           | But IMO that just makes it feel even more like alchemy. The
           | gold is cursed.
        
         | jbm wrote:
         | Your uncle sounds like a lot more fun than the latest
         | javascript build system.
         | 
         | Imagine being confident enough to believe and document that.
         | Crazy? Maybe, but a crazy one can appreciate.
        
           | BeetleB wrote:
           | I know you're only half serious, but ...
           | 
           | The problem isn't when one uncle is doing this. The problem
           | is when the bulk of the content you see on FB is as crazy as
           | this.
           | 
           | I mean, if you like purchasing the National Enquirer and
           | flipping through it, then by all means, this is for you.
        
       | perihelions wrote:
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20250127020059/https://distrowat...
        
       | benrutter wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | nonrandomstring wrote:
         | > I'm at a complete loss to understand Facebook's stance on
         | anything.
         | 
         | There is no stance. All that fluffy PR, all the perception
         | management and "optics", all diplomacy and compromise... That
         | just flew out the window when the new order came in.
         | 
         | Zuck has knelt before the Emperor. The mask is off. This is the
         | real face of Facebook. Rage. Hatred. Misogyny, Racism. And
         | naked propaganda against software freedom. You'll probably see
         | a bit of Steve Balmer style force chair-throwing from the young
         | Zuck as his dark-side powers grow stronger.
        
           | dingnuts wrote:
           | >Zuck has knelt before the Emperor. The mask is off. This is
           | the real face of Facebook.
           | 
           | Where have you been? Zuck has knelt before every Emperor
           | along the way. The mask is off? The mask HAS BEEN off -- the
           | only difference is who the master is.
           | 
           | Let me guess, you're a Democrat?
           | 
           | Me, I'm politically homeless, and I've been screaming about
           | FB censoring whatever the current admin in power tells them
           | to, for FIFTEEN YEARS.
           | 
           | Take your partisan blinders off. This isn't going to get
           | fixed by electing a Democrat.
        
             | spencerflem wrote:
             | yea this is true - & also not a democrat & also upset with
             | some of the stuff they've censored in the past too
             | 
             | W/ that said, censoring anti trans stuff and racist stuff
             | makes the platform more pleasant for me, whereas what
             | they're doing now does not
        
               | Conscat wrote:
               | As a trans occasional-user of Facebook, I never saw _any_
               | censoring of transphobic hate speech. During any
               | administration, I was fed very many posts from nominally
               | pro-queer visibility pages that existed primarily to bait
               | interaction from vehemently transphobic or homophobic
               | users. I saw everything you could imagine stated with
               | zero repercussions from site staff or even the consensus
               | of other users.
        
               | spencerflem wrote:
               | They made it completely legal now, my understanding was
               | that it used to be at least nominally against the rules.
               | 
               | Totally agreed that it has always sucked though.
        
         | spencerflem wrote:
         | the "free speech" was a promise to promote right wing speech.
         | do not mistake it for ideology.
         | 
         | banning left wing activism, either acknowledging the genocide
         | in Gaza or apparently now promoting free (less surveilled)
         | software is against what the authoritarians want so it is
         | banned.
         | 
         | this is all consistent if you see it through that lens
        
           | CivBase wrote:
           | But it's not consistent because Linux is not aligned with
           | either side of US politics. This doesn't address OP's
           | confusion.
        
             | yellowapple wrote:
             | Linux is free software, and software freedom is communist.
             | It's also the brainchild of a Finn, and every red-blooded
             | American knows that Europeans are all commies.
             | 
             |  _Real_ patriots use good ol ' American operating systems,
             | like Oracle Solaris(tm).
        
             | spencerflem wrote:
             | dang's probably right that its a glitch- but I honestly
             | believe Linux is Free as in Freedom, which is opposed by
             | both parties but primarily the radical authoritarians in
             | charge right now
        
       | udev4096 wrote:
       | 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
        
         | em-bee wrote:
         | to talk to people who are not yet using linux?
        
         | sophacles wrote:
         | What? Google is a linux user - I doubt they care about privacy
         | or freedom. Same with facebook - that company uses linux a lot
         | while actively opposing privacy.
         | 
         | Lots of people use linux because it's a good OS, irrespective
         | of privacy concerns (see the occasional flareup about some
         | software or another automatically shipping off bug reports -
         | some people don't care, others are incredibly concerned).
        
       | paulnpace wrote:
       | Why is this submission flagged?
        
         | beardyw wrote:
         | People flag stuff.
        
         | RandomBacon wrote:
         | HN moderation outsourced to FB? /joke
        
       | beardyw wrote:
       | I am getting no response on that link.
        
         | vmilner wrote:
         | Distrowatch seems to be under heavy load (probably because of
         | this news story)
        
       | oliwarner wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | johnea wrote:
         | I notice a lot of topics being flagged recently.
         | 
         | I would ask flaggers to simply skip those posts and let people
         | who are interested in discussing those topics have their
         | discussion.
         | 
         | Shutting down other peoples conversations is a disturbing trend
         | and it is giving HN more of a one sided echo chamber feel.
        
           | Mountain_Skies wrote:
           | Tech censorship, especially during the pandemic, made some
           | giddy with power that they thought would extend to everything
           | forever.
        
       | lproven wrote:
       | @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/
        
         | LorenDB wrote:
         | Anybody here have connections at Meta? Seems like this should
         | be fixed.
        
           | lproven wrote:
           | I have written to their PR department. TBH I am not expecting
           | a useful answer.
        
             | ahoka wrote:
             | Good luck connecting to a human at Meta. Even the CEO is a
             | cyborg.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | I've turned the flags off now. It's not a very good thread,
         | though--mostly jokes and generic reactions, which is what
         | happens when an article contains little information, but the
         | information it does contain is provocative.
         | 
         | These little scandals nearly always turn out to be glitchy
         | emphemera in the Black Box of $BigCo, rather than a policy or
         | plan. I imagine that's the case here too. Why would Facebook
         | ban discussion of the operating system it runs on, after 20+
         | years?
         | 
         | (Btw: @dang doesn't work - if you want reliable message
         | delivery you need to email hn@ycombinator.com)
        
           | lproven wrote:
           | Thank you very much!
           | 
           | TBH I didn't think the @ thing would work - I was just hoping
           | you'd notice. I have been meaning to email you, though.
        
           | VanTheBrand wrote:
           | Ultimately, @dang seems to have worked just fine, so well
           | that it worked even without working.
        
       | everdrive wrote:
       | Somewhat ironic given that actual linux packages are mirrored
       | there.
       | 
       | http://www.fedora.mirror.facebook.net/
        
         | bluedino wrote:
         | Reminds me of when they do 'firewall updates' at work, and many
         | of the common open-source repositories/hosting etc are blocked.
         | 
         | I understand than some malicious software may use things like
         | _curl_ , but it's also annoying to have to re-create the same
         | ticket and submit to internal IT, and then if someone working
         | on the ticket hasn't done this before, they close it, we have
         | to have a meeting about why we need access to that site...
        
           | devnullbrain wrote:
           | The inverse isn't tolerated. If you're a software developer,
           | you get tested for IT knowledge with phishing emails. Yet in
           | IT it's perfectly normal to have an ignorance of the core
           | needs of the developers - and computing itself - that results
           | in reduced productivity or shadow IT systems.
           | 
           | It's not an exaggeration to say I've experienced it at every
           | employer I've had.
        
           | psunavy03 wrote:
           | Was reading a news article the other day that described wget
           | as a "hacking tool" and about rolled my eyes into the back of
           | my head.
        
         | nailer wrote:
         | Last I checked (2008) Facebook Linux was indeed a Fedora
         | derivative.
        
           | somanyphotons wrote:
           | I think in 2014 era it was centos
        
           | homebrewer wrote:
           | Their OS is based on CentOS Stream, I think they're one of
           | the very few major organizations that stuck with CentOS post-
           | Stream and did not switch to something else entirely.
        
             | xor-eax-eax wrote:
             | Untrue, it's purist startup people and some ISVs who
             | believe that Alma or Rocky are the somehow "better".
             | 
             | Meta runs 10M+ CentOS 9 Stream boxes migrating to 10
             | eventually.
             | 
             | Cent has shorter security update availability latency and
             | they're shipped more consistently. The benefit with Rocky
             | and Alma is double the lifecycle time and arguably better
             | governance, unfortunately though they're both tiny
             | operations that suffer from a narrow bus factor, are always
             | playing catch-up, drifting away from RHEL compatibility,
             | and are the definition of fragmentation.
             | 
             | If you need RHEL-ish for servers, use CentOS Stream. It's
             | not great for desktop. Use Fedora or something more LTS for
             | that.
        
       | bawolff wrote:
       | 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
        
         | numbsafari wrote:
         | This is just them leaning into free of speech.
        
           | dmix wrote:
           | Meta barely changed their moderation policy. The community
           | standard docs which list every violation are still extremely
           | long and cover a large swath of speech
           | https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/,
           | to which they only added 2 bullet point exceptions (and
           | eventually the future addition of community notes)
        
             | sunshowers wrote:
             | The exceptions are not minor. Some groups can be called
             | mentally ill, but other similarly situated groups cannot.
             | 
             | It's a capitulation to the idea that speech standards
             | should be determined by public opinion and not by reason,
             | evidence and a scientific mindset.
        
               | dmix wrote:
               | > speech standards should be determined by public opinion
               | and not by reason, evidence and a scientific mindset.
               | 
               | Yes this is largely a debate between a top-down
               | technocratic worldview vs democratic/meritocratic one.
               | The point is FB is still very much on the former highly
               | centralized expert-defined guideline/automated system
               | side while only making small moves in the other direction
               | with community notes. Maybe they'll keep going in that
               | direction but what they say vs do is an important
               | distinction.
        
               | sunshowers wrote:
               | To be clear, the people who believe speech standards
               | should be determined by public opinion are as incorrect
               | as, say, flat earthers.
               | 
               | I don't have a huge problem with community notes per se.
               | I do have a huge problem with blatantly unequal standards
               | just because large parts of the public have morally
               | rotten views.
        
               | PathOfEclipse wrote:
               | > the people who believe speech standards should be
               | determined by public opinion are as incorrect as, say,
               | flat earthers.
               | 
               | Ironically, your statement is deeply incorrect. People
               | who favor democratic processes like community notes for
               | enforcing speech standards do so because they think
               | concentration of power in the hands of a few leads to
               | corruption far more than diffusing it among the populace.
               | And we have all the evidence already to know the first
               | half of that claim is true. Fact checking organizations
               | proved themselves wildly left-biased and perfectly
               | willing to deceive, lie, and misdirect with "fact checks"
               | to accomplish their political goals.
        
               | sunshowers wrote:
               | Centralized and diffused power are each vulnerable in
               | their own ways -- diffused power to cults in particular.
               | You'd generally expect people with more training to make
               | better decisions than people with less training.
               | 
               | Regardless, morality in general is quite objective. In
               | particular, it is objectively the case that letting some
               | groups of people be called mentally ill while other
               | similarly situated groups not is bad.
               | 
               | > Fact checking organizations proved themselves wildly
               | left-biased
               | 
               | Meh. The only thing that matters is whether they're
               | reflecting objective reality. There's no a priori reason
               | to believe that each political tendency is equally
               | attached to reality.
        
               | PathOfEclipse wrote:
               | Do you really think a "scientific mindset", "evidence",
               | or "reason" was what determined Facebook's speech
               | standards? What evidence do you have to support that?
               | Because the world has a mountain of evidence to the
               | contrary, that much or most of it was politically-
               | motivated:
               | 
               | https://www.dailywire.com/news/zuckerberg-biden-harris-
               | repea...
               | 
               | https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-pro-life-
               | accounts-d...
               | 
               | https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admin-pressured-fb-
               | to-s...
               | 
               | https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-asked-meta-to-
               | rem...
               | 
               | https://www.dailywire.com/news/meta-doubles-down-after-
               | zucke...
               | 
               | https://www.dailywire.com/news/meet-the-former-
               | politifact-fa...
               | 
               | https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-key-player-in-
               | facebook...
        
         | w0m wrote:
         | Define Blocked? I just posted a https://meta.wikimedia.org/
         | link without issue.
        
           | bawolff wrote:
           | Based on this comment https://www.facebook.com/story.php?stor
           | y_fbid=90140663553077... (can i even directly link to fb.
           | Idk)
           | 
           | Some people were complaining about meta, but species seems
           | the main one. And only the main site, the mobile site is
           | fine.
        
           | Symbiote wrote:
           | I tried to make a post with the
           | https://species.wikimedia.org/ link, and I get "Your content
           | couldn't be shared, because this link goes against our
           | Community Standards".
        
             | Dalewyn wrote:
             | Being generous, it could be there's NSFW imagery in there?
             | I can't be arsed to dig into a mountain of scientifically
             | named links, but you can find troves of pr0n among other
             | things in Wikimedia if you know where to look.
        
               | linuxandrew wrote:
               | I mean you can find porn on Google and you don't have to
               | look that hard
        
               | zblevins wrote:
               | Thank you for actually spelling porn. This whole thing
               | around altering spelling to avoid blocking which I
               | presume comes out of other apps has gotten to be quite
               | annoying.
        
               | Dalewyn wrote:
               | "Pr0n" is classic internet slang that predates onerous
               | censorship let alone "apps".
        
               | dragonwriter wrote:
               | Right, the form to deal with onerous censorship is
               | "corn".
        
       | cess11 wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | James_K wrote:
       | > Starting on January 19, 2025 Facebook's internal policy makers
       | decided that Linux is malware
       | 
       | I'm glad someone finally said it.
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | It's been known for over 20 years:
         | https://homestarrunner.com/sbemails/118-virus
        
       | GuB-42 wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | indymike wrote:
         | Kali is one example. That said Kali is not a bad thing.
        
           | quesera wrote:
           | We are obligated to have an external auditor run PCI DSS
           | penetration testing and network segmentation testing every
           | year.
           | 
           | Their second request (after a network diagram) is always to
           | create an EC2 instance running Kali.
           | 
           | Which, honestly, confuses me a bit -- all of the packages are
           | available in AL or Ubuntu, so why do they care? I don't know,
           | and I guess I don't care enough to ask. Just give me the
           | attestation document please. :)
        
             | zblevins wrote:
             | Think about all the time saved not having to do sudo or su.
        
         | mr_toad wrote:
         | Probably some jobsworth decided that free software = piracy.
         | 
         | I knew a company that leapt to the same conclusion regarding
         | GitHub.
        
       | nottorp wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | BryanLunduke wrote:
       | No, Facebook is Not Censoring "Linux", Only "DistroWatch".
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOdMTS6XVu4
        
         | tombert wrote:
         | I don't have the ability to watch 20 minutes of Bryan Lunduke
         | and keep my lunch, so is there a tl;dr of this?
         | 
         | It's still kind of dumb for them to block Distrowatch
         | regardless. I guess it's just a bit of automation that wasn't
         | tuned correctly?
         | 
         | ETA:
         | 
         | I just saw the username. lol.
        
           | RIMR wrote:
           | Don't feel bad for insulting Bryan to his face. It's the
           | correct response.
        
             | tombert wrote:
             | I didn't say I felt bad.
        
         | paulnpace wrote:
         | I'm not watching a 20 minute video on the topic, but there is a
         | user in an HN comment[1] stating links to debian.org and qubes-
         | os.org were removed by facebook.
         | 
         | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42840143
        
           | tored wrote:
           | Thus Facebook is not censoring Linux discussions or Linux
           | content, what DistroWatch claimed, it blocks linking to what
           | Facebook deems as malicious links (correctly or incorrectly),
           | something a lot of software does these days.
           | 
           | This is what the yanks call "a complete nothing-burger".
        
         | philipwhiuk wrote:
         | Nice job shilling your own content. If it's worth watching post
         | it as Show HN.
        
       | boomboomsubban wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | insane_dreamer wrote:
       | 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)
        
       | nu2ycombinator wrote:
       | Interesting. Same Facebook, refuses take action on reports
       | submitted on fake accounts created to spam people and harassment
       | videos.
        
       | buyucu wrote:
       | this is why content moderation is a really bad idea. the false
       | positives are going to dominate any moderation you do.
        
         | forgetfreeman wrote:
         | I'd assert that using private walled gardens as primary
         | distribution channels is the root bad idea here.
        
           | buyucu wrote:
           | they go together. once you have a walled garden, the
           | temptation to moderate/censor it is too large. censorship was
           | practically impossible in the old internet before social
           | media.
        
       | duxup wrote:
       | Bot or ML gone wrong and it misunderstood the mention of Linux
       | when associated with bad things and just equated them?
        
       | beretguy wrote:
       | Facebook is a cyber security threat.
        
       | kazinator wrote:
       | 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?
        
       | hsuduebc2 wrote:
       | Lol. So glad they let literal lies and propaganda going with
       | community notes but keep something usefull. Garbage as always.
        
       | Beretta_Vexee wrote:
       | 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.
        
         | rightbyte wrote:
         | >My mother receives invitations to groups that share photos of
         | migrants drowned in the Mediterranean.
         | 
         | To mock them?
        
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