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A Facebook glitch marked coronavirus posts as spam

Published

5 years ago

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Social platforms and big tech companies have stepped up amid the coronavirus pandemic, moving aggressively to try and combat misinformation and put expert, reliable sources front and centre for users. And people have been using Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and various other platforms to share community information, offer help, and shame their peers and parents into social distancing.

But over the past day or so, there was an unexplained spike in removals and flagging of posts relating to the coronavirus and the illness it causes, COVID-19. Users on Facebook and Twitter reported that innocuous, informative, or authentic news posts about the outbreak were being flagged as spam or removed.

Facebook’s VP of Integrity, Guy Rosen, assured users via Twitter on Tuesday evening U.S. time that the cause was “a bug in an anti-spam system,” with a fix on the way, which he confirmed in a later tweet.

He also denied that the pattern was a result of “changes in [the] content moderator workforce”. Those teams, which are largely composed of contract workers, were finally sent home from offices on Tuesday, as part of social distancing efforts to slow the spread of the virus.

While some users have speculated that there may be a coordinated effort to report coronavirus coverage, which some Trump supporters falsely perceive as a campaign by “the media” to undermine the president, there’s currently no evidence for this.

Mashable has reached out to Facebook for comment and clarification, and will update with any response.

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