14 DAY TRIAL // A number of users have reported that Facebook was blocking an article in The Guardian on Richard O’Dwyer, the owner of the now-defunct TVShack. It seems that the social media site’s filters blocked the content because it made references to the site that once hosted links to copyrighted content.
“James Ball wrote a great article on the case for The Guardian, but shortly after posting it noticed that the Facebook share button the page was not allowing the article to be posted to Facebook,” James Losey noted.
“I was able to post the link directly but was able to confirm that the Facebook share was indeed blocking the link. The share button notes that the article contains the name of a link that has been blocked for being ‘spammy or unsafe.’”
Facebook later addressed the issue, but now questions are raised regarding the site’s filters. It’s true that they have a hard time blocking scams and all sorts of illegal content, but in certain cases they go too far.
In this particular case, The Guardian article only mentioned once tvshack.net, and it was immediately detected as being spammy or unsafe.
The controversial story of Richard O’Dwyer has been long debated, especially since he may be handed over to US authorities.
Moreover, since Anonymous hacktivists from the UK have launched Operation Trial At Home, an op that’s meant as a protest against the extradition agreements between the country and the United States, the name of O’Dwyer and TVShack has been picked up by many media outlets.
The worrying thing is that Facebook has been asked numerous times to do something regarding the baby hoaxes that circulate, the ones that cause a lot of grief to families, and failed to deploy any effective measures. On the other hand, harmless content is blocked just because a controversial word is present.