21 ms·

FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

608 points by votick 5y ago

ramesh31 5y ago
They've been doing this for years with porn, graphic shock sites, and conspiracy sites. Not sure why this needs to be reiterated, but if you even remotely value your freedom and privacy, never use Facebook again for any reason.
- blunte 5y ago
  It needs to be reiterated because many people missed examples like this in the past. Every new user needs to be made aware of what is really going on, and what Facebook thinks of them as.
mgraczyk 5y ago
The censorship is intentional on the part of Facebook, but the "silent" part is a frontend bug on messenger.com (possibly also the app). Normally it shows you a red "error" indicator next to the message that says something like "this goes against our community guidelines. The error can be seen in some of the screenshots. It briefly shows "couldn't send" and if you refresh the page the messages disappear forever.
- snet0 5y ago
  Without wanting to wade into the discussion, it is interesting that this comment has no replies as of yet. It's almost as though, to a lot of people commenting, discussion about fact isn't the intention. We're just here for the daily shit on Evil Corp.
  - ziml77 5y ago
    There are replies to another comment about it being a bug. They are saying that's just a cover. Standard conspiracy stuff. But people are also questioning the whole idea of blocking messages at all. Everyone thinks they don't need to be protected, but the fact of it is that we're all vulnerable to manipulation. Hell, that's one of the issues that people take with media platforms. Their content selection algorithms and targeted ads are manipulative.
Barrin92 5y ago
That messenger is subject to facebook's community guidelines is nothing new, Zuckerberg said so himself publicly in an interview a few years ago https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-confirms-scans-messenger-app-texts-photos-2018-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-confirms-scans-mess...
- polote 5y ago
  It's e2e but we can your messages before you send them. Original Edit : it appears that it is not e2e by default
- swayvil 5y ago
  >That messenger is subject to facebook's community guidelines is nothing new This thing that you just said. This statement that you just made. The choice of phrasing. Is very weasel. Very corporate newspeak. It's got a kind of beauty. Like when Ash, from Alien (1979), speaks admiringly : "You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility...I admire its purity. A survivor...unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality."
- theteapot 5y ago
  That messenger is subject to facebook's ~~community guidelines~~ world view ...
- cowpig 5y ago
  Your phrasing seems to imply that - we should know that messenger being "subject to community guidelines" means silent censorship - Zuckerberg saying something publicly means it is justified I would disagree with both of those implied assumptions
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    You should know it because you signed the terms of service which includes the statement, (in the beginning) that Messenger is subject to Facebook's community guidelines, which at the top of the page tell you: "As people around the world confront this unprecedented public health emergency, we want to make sure that our Community Standards protect people from harmful content and new types of abuse related to COVID-19. We're working to remove content that has the potential to contribute to real-world harm, including through our policies prohibiting coordination of harm, sale of medical masks and related goods, hate speech, bullying and harassment and misinformation that contributes to the risk of imminent violence or physical harm. As the situation evolves, we continue to look at content on the platform, assess speech trends, and engage with experts, and will provide additional policy guidance when appropriate to keep the members of our community safe during this crisis." https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/ https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/
TechBro8615 5y ago
This has been happening for years. Just try sending a message containing the string `joebiden.info` and see what happens. We’re way past the rubicon. Get your information as best you can and just hope you’re somewhat aligned with the mainstream.
- ekam 5y ago
  Just tried it and it sends without an issue
  - toolz 5y ago
    I suspect they have flagged users that get filtered differently. I've been in comment threads where people say very similar things as myself with all the same keywords and I'll get a message days later about a submission being hidden due to some violations.
  - koolba 5y ago
    Depends on how you do it. If it’s E2E then according to this comment from March 2020 it goes through: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23110664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23110664
  - colordrops 5y ago
    I tried it during the election and it didn't work. Have uninstalled it since then so don't know if things have changed.
  - swayvil 5y ago
    Well that was just an example. Of course they would not actually censor `joebiden.info`. Not on your life! They would censor other stuff, pertaining to other political leanings, and other scientific-medical subjects... You know, the badthink.
    - trophycase 5y ago
      What? 90% of the garbage circulated on facebook is republican qanon conspiracy theories at worst, and tabloid reactionary garbage at best.
rvz 5y ago
Don't worry, it's another 'accident' by the automated moderation systems; brought to you by Facebook. /s Do you really think that these companies are on your side or are your friends?
- kevmo 5y ago
  "Oh we are so sorry, please feel free to fine us $1 million. This was a rogue programmer!"
kevmo 5y ago
Facebook has been suppressing links and profiles that don't make them money for years.
- sqqqqrly 5y ago
  Why does anyone use fb? I never have had an account. I do help my mother-in-law with hers a bit. My company asked me to create a Twitter account. I deleted it a month later. The soln to bad speech is better speech.
  - nvr219 5y ago
    I use Facebook because the groups I'm involved with IRL communicate on Facebook, or whatsapp (also owned by fb of course).
  - rnd0 5y ago
    >Why does anyone use fb? If you want to communicate or reach out to people, you go where the people are. Currently that's FB. On a separate note, the problem with saying that the solution to bad speech is better speech is that it doesn't take crapflooding by bad actors into account. Your good speech is kinda worthless if it's drowned out by disinformation, lies or just plain non-sense.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
throwawayswede 5y ago
What's more frustrating than Facebook doing this is that there are people who support this solely based on the the type of content that gets shadow-banned, censored, or penalized. Even Tweet OP is trying to justify their opposition to this behavior by stating "im pro-science/vaccine/etc, but this not cool fb". To reiterate the same freaking point that gets spelled out on every post: IT'S NOT THE TYPE OF CONTENT THAT IS THE PROBLEM, IT'S THE METHOD. IF YOU'RE OK WITH THIS AGAINST ALEX JONES, YOU CAN'T COMPLAIN WHEN THEY START CENSORING ABORTION/LGBTQQIP2SAA HELP LINES. It's amazing to me that some people -especially millennials/zoomers who are left-by-default (read: without thinking, leftists to fit the group)- don't see selective blocking by an authority (even the state) is no problem, as long as it fits their views and it's only problematic when it's against them. IMO these same people are the prime target to become archetype republican later on in life, after they get disillusioned with their group and slowly start to spot hypocrisy. To be clear, both democrats and republicans are hypocrites.
fareesh 5y ago
GNews is where you can see the contents of the Hunter Biden laptop so that's why it's banned. Had the contents of some Trump family member's laptop been leaked to the media, Facebook would have it trending. This technology is used to ensure that preferred candidates have an advantage.
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  Everyone familiar with the political field in the US knows your comments is spot on. The down votes are sour grapes. The truth, it hurts so good!
blunte 5y ago
It's one thing to censor, but it's another to intentionally deceive your users into believing that they sent something.
- edoceo 5y ago
  Malicious?
  - malwarebytess 5y ago
    Sort of. It's like shadowbanning/hellbanning. It solves a lot of problems for moderators and prevents angry people from escalating the situation into actually being banned. I've used it before as a moderator. For the above reasons, but mostly because I'm lazy and don't want to deal with angry people. Still censorship though. I think that ideally censorship ought to be communicated.
    - lmilcin 5y ago
      >because I'm lazy Yeah, you described it well. Start by understanding, Mr Moderator, there is a hell of a lot of difference between public posts and private messages.
      - cronix 5y ago
        Not if your goal is to censor a viewpoint. They are one in the same whether it's a viewpoint made in public or private - the main point of censorship is to not allow you to communicate certain thoughts. It amazes me that some posts here (not yours, but like the one you're responding to) have already seeded the censorship ground. For them it seems the question isn't whether it's ok to censor opposing viewpoints, but whether they should be told they've been censored. The censorship part is a-ok, but not if you're not informed?
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        5y ago
ZoomerCretin 5y ago
In case anyone is wondering what Pulitzer-prize winning piece she is attempting to share, check out her link yourself: https://gnews.org/1476750/ https://gnews.org/1476750/, as well as a fact-check disproving all of the dangerous and false claims inside: https://www.techarp.com/science/greenlight-ivermectin-japan/ https://www.techarp.com/science/greenlight-ivermectin-japan/ I, for one, am glad Facebook is censoring this baseless pseudo-medical advice being given which has been responsible for a massive increase in calls to poison control (https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-sees-spike-in-poison-calls-for-horse-and-cow-dewormer-ivermectin-despite-fda-warning/287-57a97ba4-ea7a-42b7-adda-e8618b35d9fd https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-s...) Ivermectin causes “Nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain,” the director of the Texas Poison Center told TPR. “However, you can have further problems, including mental status changes, coma, even seizures… I haven’t seen any deaths here in Texas, but these are things that are reported by the manufacturer with people who use large doses.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/08/americans-poisoning-themselves-unapproved-covid-drug-ivermectin/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/08/americans-poiso...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ummonk 5y ago
  The whole Ivermectin thing is dumb and stupid. But are you seriously saying silent censorship of links in Messenger is okay?
  - voidfunc 5y ago
    Sure, its a private communication service. Why isnt it okay? You are using FB infrastructure to communicate, they absolutely should get a say in what you are allowed to share.
    - treesprite82 5y ago
      If you asked me to pass on a letter then I tell you that I've done so, you'd be annoyed if you found out that I actually just threw it away. If I told you up front that I wasn't willing to pass it on then you could find someone else to do so, but the silent nature inhibits that. Even without the silence, there's concern about the power and influence held by a few large social media companies with billions of conversations taking place through them. There's been some bipartisan interest in forcing them to either act more like a common carrier or be subject to the full responsibilities of a publisher.
franciscop 5y ago
Wait I thought this was known? I remember seeing this behavior with a friend when I had FB, and I haven't had FB for 3-4 year already.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- 63 5y ago
  I had a similar reaction. I specifically remember sharing a pornhub link (it was not porn, but a movie someone had uploaded to the site) as a joke, but it wouldn't send. I guess the difference here is what's being censored.
  - lostmsu 5y ago
    Pornhub seems to be fine today.
treelovinhippie 5y ago
In Australia the government's (dubious) re-opening plan is based upon modelling by the Doherty Institute. Facebook censors anyone from sharing that report. Here's the link to try yourself: https://www.doherty.edu.au/uploads/content_doc/DohertyModelling_NationalPlan_and_Addendum_20210810.pdf https://www.doherty.edu.au/uploads/content_doc/DohertyModell...
encryptluks2 5y ago
This is why it is best to avoid centralized platforms like FB, Apple iMessage, Twitter DMs, etc.
void_mint 5y ago
Threads about censorship consistently remind me that HN is no different than any other social media platform, subject to users pushing various agendas and misinformation in support of those agendas. There's nothing wrong with private businesses removing content they don't deem appropriate. There is also nothing wrong with silencing users obviously lying. Thinking differently totally misunderstands social media as a medium.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  Classic way to misunderstand the problem. When “the private business” is a group so large and dominant in their field that they can stop threats by absorbing them, lawsuits, or other tactics, they aren’t just “a private company” anymore. Your comment reeks of someone who doesn’t think it will ever be themselves that will be censored.
  - void_mint 5y ago
    > Classic way to misunderstand the problem. I could same the same about yours. > Your comment reeks of someone who doesn’t think it will ever be themselves that will be censored. Not super concerned with social media posts being taken down, no, as that's always been happening. Websites moderate their content. What's the surprise? Also amusing name.
porlune 5y ago
I'm going to go on out on a limb and guess that this isn't really a case of censorship, because it's not like Facebook to not tell you directly that they've removed your content. Or they go the other route and post a disclaiming "fact check" under it.. but so far as silently removing posts, and marking them as "sent", seems more likely to be a bug. When I attempt to navigate to gnews.org the site is very slow, and I wonder if Facebook is having trouble assigning some kind of risk factor to it, then giving up, but ends up sending a "success" response anyway, whereby the front end just assumes the message was sent property and pushes it to your message cache without attempting to fetch it over the network. edit: since this has been down voted, could you explain why you think I'm wrong?
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Probably downvoted because IMO that's a very weak limb you're going on, and the behaviour you're describing probably seems unbelievable to many users. But well, maybe it is shitty coder(s) mishandling timeouts.
  - porlune 5y ago
    That's not really explaining why (or how) I'm wrong, just that you don't believe me.. which is fine, but not constructive. It seems generally less believable that Facebook would censor people without telling them. Other commenters [0] appear to believe the same as I do, and note that FB typically informs the user that their action/behavior is against the site's terms of use. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28342263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28342263
    - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
      Shrugs, I didn't downvote you. Since people don't know whether your speculation is wrong or right (unless there's an FB developer around), they can only judge whether your speculation is plausible or not. And I guess they mostly thought it wasn't plausible.
      - 5y ago
Mikejames 5y ago
looks like it’s changed now, saying “couldn’t send”
cryptoz 5y ago
Microsoft silently censored MSN chats 20 years ago. Couldn't talk about PHP programming easily because any message with 'index.php' was silently dropped. Blew my mind they would dare do that, but I've since learned this is common practice at all major chat apps. If they don't like a message you are sending they are likely to silently drop it and let you think it was delivered. Just no care at all for the user experience at a base level.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  I'm curious, what would be the reason behind banning index.php, especially considering it was a common feature of links at the time?
- rnd0 5y ago
  >Blew my mind they would dare do that, but I've since learned this is common practice at all major chat apps. I'm sure Discord will be no exception -though I can't think of any current examples that apply to it. That makes me worry about the way that it's displacing/has displaced IRC.
otterley 5y ago
Why anyone should care if you can't send links to websites run by kooky nutjobs with false or highly questionable COVID information to other people via FB messenger?
- JasonFruit 5y ago
  Because of the precedent that sets. For example, some would hold that socialism is as economically illiterate as anti-vaccine opinions are medically illiterate to you. Should socialist links be likewise censored?
  - otterley 5y ago
    The precedent that privately-run internet messenger services can censor content was set a very long time ago. You’re decades late to that party. Besides, we’re not talking about political opinions here. If they ever do that (which is unlikely), then we can become justifiably upset. That’s a hill worth dying on — this one is not.
    - mgraczyk 5y ago
      About this case in particular, one problem I have is that they seem to censor the entire domain. Most of the content on that site is bad and definitely violates Facebook's rules. A lot of it is straight up lies made up by the site owner for political purposes. However, some articles on the site are just political opinions about the CCP. Because Facebook blocks those, I think the merits of this censorship at a coarse grain are worth discussing.
      - otterley 5y ago
        When 99% of your content makes the rest of it look good, you willingly assume that risk. Nobody should be shedding tears about this. Also, censorship is forbidden only to the government and to common carriers (which Facebook is not). Private parties (with very rare and reasonable exceptions) have the right to control what others do with their chattels.
ScaleneTriangle 5y ago
This is a bug. The intended behaviour is to notify the user that tried to send the link. Doesn't make it okay.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  I don't buy it. It is always "a bug" or some other excuse. Then we find out later it wasn't a bug after all. If you lie frequently enough you loose right for benefit of the doubt.
  - ScaleneTriangle 5y ago
    Well considering that this behavior only appears in specific situations, I'm inclined to believe the bug claim.
- kevmo 5y ago
  Facebook always says everything is a bug. A year later, it is standard operating procedure.
ogsalmanxx 5y ago
Too many Facebook shareholders here that look the other way. Literal scums, the lot of them.
ajma 5y ago
I just tried with the same url and there's a message telling me it won't send
- nightwing 5y ago
  But if you send another message after that, then the indicator changes to delivered. May be a bug in adding a new feature caused by developer only caring about not sending the message part.
tonmoy 5y ago
The domain looks like fake new/sketchy to me (I could be wrong). Maybe there is a ban for the entire domain?
MattGaiser 5y ago
I get “couldn’t send” when I try that URL.
nikolay 5y ago
No too silently - it didn't allow me to send JotForms to our school parents claiming those links are not safe.
atok1 5y ago
This is another reason to only use E2EE FOSS messengers, ever.
- loopdoend 5y ago
  That would not prevent this.
  - barbazoo 5y ago
    Assuming it's some kind of active censorship and not a bug, how would this be possible with Signal for instance?
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    E2EE would absolutely 100% prevent this.
    - lsh123 5y ago
      Unless filtering happens on the client (see recent Apple news)
      - betwixthewires 5y ago
        That's where the FOSS comes in.
- zaik 5y ago
  You also should be able to host your own server instance and be able to communicate with others on the network (XMPP, Matrix, ...).
  - atok1 5y ago
    Certainly agree with this!
darkhorn 5y ago
MSN Messenger was censoring some words, if I remember correctly like "Summer Jam" and "papaz". I was unable to find those words but I have found a related news article https://circleid.com/posts/07080616_msn_messenger_censor_info_domains/ https://circleid.com/posts/07080616_msn_messenger_censor_inf... Since Facebook was partially bought by Microsoft I believe Messenger is continuation of MSN Messsanger. I abandon such applications without hesitation.
- foxfluff 5y ago
  Yep, it was censoring messages containing specific words and links alike. Silently.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
efitz 5y ago
Big tech is out of control and drunk on their own power. Freedom of speech, even obnoxious, obscene, wrong, or even evil speech, has always been a core American value. Now, we have young people running these companies who think that they are wise enough to discern “good” from “bad” speech, and that they have a moral right, nay, a moral duty, to “protect” people from bad speech. Censorship has NEVER ended well. Anywhere. Anytime. Censors ALWAYS have the best of intentions, and always believe that they alone know the truth and that merely being exposed to contradictory ideas is harmful. And they always end up tyrants. I don’t care about anti-monopoly or section 230 or whatever. I’m asking my representatives to pass legislation that requires any company with a nontrivial user base or size (eg 1 million monthly users or 50 million annual revenue, pick your own numbers if you have better ones), to act as common carriers. That is to say, that they may not adopt TOS/TOU or preferential behavior that discriminates for or against any lawful activity or creed, period.
cblconfederate 5y ago
This isnt anymore even about freedom of speech but about a product constantly and intently manipulating and deceiving its users. It must be pretty shitty people working there, who relish in playing games with humans as if they're monkeys. Even their automated systems sound like total crap. I have a game on facebook for a decade, where users sometimes try to send some link to their friend through messenger. FB blocks it every few weeks and users have to beg them to unblock it every time. What a terrible company to invest in
efitz 5y ago
Wow, people on HN are really downvoting posts that take a position against censorship on this thread.
- mwilliaams 5y ago
  That’s really nothing new.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- userbinator 5y ago
  Where do you think some "people on HN" work...? I'm not surprised.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  I am beginning to think that threads get bum rushed whenever certain topics are broached.
akudha 5y ago
What do the engineers who code stuff like this think? Do they not feel bad or is it masked by the salary they get paid?
- rnd0 5y ago
  >What do the engineers who code stuff like this think? "Another day, another dollar"
  - ergocoder 5y ago
    Trust me. The way activism is going, they would do it even with no money offered.
    - rnd0 5y ago
      Indeed, both the "woke" and the "alt right" are united in their love of repressing what other people have to say. You are correct!
      - DonHopkins 5y ago
        And complaining about how they're the victims of "cancel culture" when they're the ones trying to cancel people themselves.
- ng12 5y ago
  The majority of software engineers simply do not care. They're in it for a comfortable career with a fat paycheck.
- brigandish 5y ago
  They probably haven’t thought about it to any depth, just have a look at how many HNers - a crowd I’d have previously assumed to be against everything this story implies: censorship, lack of privacy, corporatism etc - will openly support these things on these very boards.
  - 5y ago
userbinator 5y ago
The sooner the general public learns about steganography, the better. Unfortunately, the sentiment of anti-intellectualism and blissful ignorance propagated by corporate entities who realise knowledgeable users are more difficult to control and monetise will be a big hurdle against that happening. Edit: steganography, not stenography.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  I think you mean steganography (hiding secret message in plain sight), not stenography (techniques for writing/typing less).
  - userbinator 5y ago
    Indeed. Thanks!
RicoElectrico 5y ago
Likewise you just can't send any links with duckdns.org domain. BUT you will get (or would have gotten) a warning about that.
avodonosov 5y ago
Youtube does this with comments - your UI makes impression the comment is posted, but it actually is not. (Sometimes the comment can also dissapear from your UI as well - I've tried editing a comment, but it fails saving and after page refreh the comment dissapeared. Reproduced that multiple times.)
apatheticonion 5y ago
Would be great if someone reverse engineered the Messenger protocol and wrapped it with a better messenger.
- dicknuckle 5y ago
  I use an alternative app to communicate over Messenger and it still relies on the same APIs. That said, the app is mostly unmaintained and actually does pretend to send messages with a banned domain. Friends were discussing antivaxxers and I had just received a link over SMS from an old acquaintance to an antivax video. I tried to send it through Disa.IM and it "sent" as far as I was aware, then a few minutes later I was using FB on a desktop browser and that message was showing some kind of failure message that it was against community guidelines. When I went to look at the app on my phone, the message with the offending URL was just gone. like it had never been sent. The feature clearly exists serverside and the alternative client doesn't have a way to handle that part of the API.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  The protocol used to be XMPP, back a decade ago when I used Facebook I used messenger in a standard XMPP client. You could use it with pidgin/libpurple. Then they walled it off. It's better to just use something else.
anonymousiam 5y ago
Why is anyone still using FB? They've been arbitrarily censoring content for some time now. Back when the CoViD-19 lab leak theory was a "conspiracy theory" they actively removed that content. Now that it's no longer a "conspiracy theory" I guess it's okay to share links about it now. What has changed? The same goes for the Hunter Biden laptop story. Back when it was "Russian propaganda" it was censored. Now that it's been verified, I guess it's okay. Honestly, do you want FB deciding what is "truth" for you?
eyelidlessness 5y ago
I find it confusing that a community that frequently acknowledges that free services treat their users as the product simultaneously has expectations that the free service should amplify their speech. This, like many similar posts here, isn’t censorship. If you want to spread your idea (any idea at all) without hindrance, don’t do it on an advertisement platform.
- strken 5y ago
  It's censorship, and more specifically it's corporate censorship. When it comes to ranking a feed, you have more of an argument, but blocking direct and supposedly "private" messages on the basis of their content is censorship.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    Okay. I'll concede, Facebook is controlling what content is sent on Facebook's own network and services. How. Dare. They? I should be able to send whatever I see fit on their DMs right? Child porn? Coordinated mass violence? Pictures of patterns of holes that upset people with trypophobia? Credit scams? How dare they silence this Nigerian prince?
    - fragileone 5y ago
      You're moving goalposts. First you claimed that this wasn't censorship, now you're saying okay it is but it's fine for them to do so here. Censorship is unacceptable in private messages, there's already reporting functionality.
      - eyelidlessness 5y ago
        I’m saying none of those causes is censorship, Facebook has no obligation to send your private messages to anyone, and I was glib enough in saying so to include my own personal squick about patterns of holes in things to emphasize the point. If Facebook doesn’t want to send my message to you, that’s their choice. It’s not my right to send messages through Facebook and expect them to be delivered to you. Even if they contain horrific circles in a pattern that makes me squirm just describing them.
upbeat_general 5y ago
As another comment points out the screenshot clearly shows two red exclamation marks indicating it wasn’t delivered. You can take issue with the censoring (and I do) but it’s not silently censoring which is much worse.
- spiderice 5y ago
  What screenshot are you looking at? Because there are no red exclamations in the image on the linked tweet
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - proto-n 5y ago
    Next tweet in the thread shows them. First pic is cropped (not sure why)
    - upbeat_general 5y ago
      the tweet appears to be intentionally deceptive. They cropped the first picture just to remove the exclamation mark.
      - sdeframond 5y ago
        Is this about the exclamation mark though ? Or about the censorship ?
        upbeat_general 5y ago
        “Silently censoring” is the key here. The censoring has been well-known for years. Most of the conversation I’ve seen in the comments has been about shadow banning which just isn’t related to what’s actually happening here.
scottydelta 5y ago
This is a form of shadow banning and it’s more common than you think. As a matter of fact, HN and Reddit do this too. If HN/Reddit think that you are posting promotions, *HN silently censors your post, claims it was posted*
- travoc 5y ago
  We call that a dark pattern.
  - capableweb 5y ago
    No, a dark pattern (at least in terms of UX) is when you intentionally mislead someone in order to gain something. The purpose of shadow banning is to make it less obvious to the spammer that they triggered the spam filter, so they get less signals to work around. Same as websites who, instead of blocking access to (computer) users they think are scrapers, change slight details in pages like for prices and whatnot.
- nullc 5y ago
  HN reports that they no longer shadowban. Reddit absolutely does shadowban still, and rather capriciously and randomly.
  - OrvalWintermute 5y ago
    Does that mean: A - They have unShadowbanned all previously Shadowbanned users? OR B - They are no longer actively shadowbanning users, but previous victims of Shadowbanning are going to stay that way? Am asking since there is a big difference between the two.
    - huibf 5y ago
      Both are false. They still actively shadowban users and already banned users have stayed banned.
      - 5y ago
michaelsbradley 5y ago
For those looking for a no-censorship-ever-of-any-kind alternative, consider Status: https://status.im/get/ https://status.im/get/ If you don't need or want a crypto wallet or dapp browser, then simply don't use those parts of the app. Relevant specs: https://specs.status.im/ https://specs.status.im/ https://rfc.vac.dev/ https://rfc.vac.dev/ Relevant repos: https://github.com/status-im/status-react https://github.com/status-im/status-react https://github.com/status-im/status-desktop https://github.com/status-im/status-desktop There are trade-offs, for sure: since there's (deliberately) no integration with contact lists (address books) of the OS or other apps, your social circle probably isn't using the app already, or in any case isn't discoverable. The public chats facility has turned out to be too spam-prone for "well known" / advertised chats, e.g. #status. However, if you create a public chat that has some unguessable component (e.g. #myfriends-a9e72ab5) and you share it with friends (even lots) in a reasonably private context, then the chances of it being spammed or randomly joined are quite low. Note that public chats, while "public", are still E2EE, using a chat's name as the basis for a symmetric key. 1-to-1 and private group chats are highly secure; the latter have a max size, and depending on their size and your device, sending messages can be a little slow. Creating a robust alternative to the existing public chats facility has involved a lot of work: the forthcoming Communities feature provides a discord-like facility whereby founders/admins of communities can take advantage of various mechanisms for moderation and governing membership. The Communities feature can already be enabled in advanced preferences of both mobile and desktop apps, but note it's a WIP. The moderation mechanisms for Communities don't undermine the no-censorship principle of Status because: (1) Any user can create a community. (2) A community's rules are managed by those with a stake in the community: there's no override by Status-the-org nor anyone else. (3) The underlying nodes of the network form a decentralized p2p network, i.e. there's no central actor/authority that controls the flow of messages. Re: (3), running a Status node should be simple and incentivized. The "incentivized" aspect is a challenging problem and not solved yet. Long story short, engineering an incentivized decentralized messaging network (it's not a blockchain!) is harder than incentivizing a blockchain network. That being said, the "simple" aspect isn't too difficult to solve, sneak peek: https://github.com/status-im/status-node https://github.com/status-im/status-node Finally, with pertinent laws and regulations in flux across the globe, there could come a day when binaries aren't readily available (from app stores, GitHub, etc.), but thankfully there's always `git clone` and `make`. Disclosure: I'm a core contributor at Status.
c0ckm4st3r 5y ago
Australians are building concentration camps as we speak. You sure you want to be on the wrong side of history?
bobthechef 5y ago
Not surprising. If you were a bit imaginative in the old days, and put your power hungry psychopath hat on (which is a fair description of those in power), you could imagine the ways technology could be used to silently produce net effects and results without anyone really knowing to avoid any protest. Here’s another one: Google can use your aggregate data along with other sources to determine whether you seem like someone favorable to the regime or not. If not, the probability distribution shifts in a way that directs you toward certain jobs and so forth that keep you from what the refine doesn’t want you near. It’s like a BigTech version of providence, except unlike divine providence, they don’t care about you. Or if they don’t like you, reveal unflattering information about you to people you know in ways that look like search results. Lots of possibilities. People are also too complaisant to protest things like these even when it’s made public.
NewNewGuy123 5y ago
Try posting anything from 4chan over messenger and see what happens
Threeve303 5y ago
If you’re trying to leave Facebook, going to WhatsApp might not be the best move.
shadowfkers 5y ago
The best thing about HN is https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest ... where you can find the least censorship.
gscott 5y ago
Speaking of FB censoring. They now censor my ability to "Like" or react it is fairly random. I will click like on something then Facebook opens a popup that says that I cannot like or react to posts because they will my liking has been harmful to others. Facebook has become unusable. I haven't posted in over a year but they have found new ways to censor.
- pndy 5y ago
  > I will click like on something then Facebook opens a popup that says that I cannot like or react to posts because they will my liking has been harmful to others Do you have this on screenshot by any chance or can you make one? It seems way too ridiculous and out of place - but then, I stopped using fb few years ago so things could "change"
  - gscott 5y ago
    Here it is. They seem to call the "Like" function "Reactions" https://photos.app.goo.gl/QseWerYMd2jVbfpa6 https://photos.app.goo.gl/QseWerYMd2jVbfpa6
inetknght 5y ago
It's been my experience that Google Voice also silences many of the links that I share with people. Ultimately I stopped sharing links over several third party services that I've used for years and have transitioned to other services instead.
- vdqtp3 5y ago
  I think it was Sprint? that was blocking Signal invites over SMS messages. This sort of thing is widespread.
shadilay 5y ago
This is exactly how chinese censorship works. https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/wechat-surveillance-explained/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/wechat-surveillance-explained/
lysp 5y ago
I've had this happen to me for years. Sharing torrent links, pastebin and a few other sites that can be used for non-legal purposes.
gchokov 5y ago
Serious question guys, please help me understand. Why are we still using Facebook services at all? How many more bad practices should all of us, and even me tolerate…
- nicce 5y ago
  Not all people have the strength to leave social media with risk of leaving as outcast or losing friends. Even if those friends might not be worth it, if you lose them because of the platform. Dopamine addicition is also real. People should realize how dangerous it can be, when the main goals of these companies are to get their users to spend as much as time possible on their platforms to watch ads. But many have other things to do, than think stuff like this.
- DoItToMe81 5y ago
  If you run a business, you don't really have a choice. Cut that out, and you lose your ability to contact potentially millions of customers.
MrWiffles 5y ago
Isn’t messenger supposedly using “end-to-end encryption”? I honestly don’t know if I’m mixing this up with what’s app since I refuse to use either one. FB is a blight upon the world. Only a fool believes anything they say.
- jreese 5y ago
  E2E is not enabled by default, because that generally provides a worse experience (eg, no desktop/web access) for users who don't care about it. You can enable E2E encryption on any conversation by tapping on the conversation title, and enabling "secret mode".
nullc 5y ago
Facebook has been silently hiding messages containing targeted links for at least a decade. I had multiple reports of censoring people discussing my depaywalling of a large cache of public domain historical scholarly papers [1], and went and checked for myself. Messages which included the link to the documents were reported as delivered but not actually delivered. I believe they may have started it at the time of one of the high profile wikileaks document dumps. This experiences is part of why I and my partner have since refused to use their services. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/swartz-supporter-dumps-18592-jstor-docs-on-the-pirate-bay/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/swartz-supporter...
knodi 5y ago
Carriers in the US do this everyday. They block URL from being sent under the "spam" claim but no notice or information is ever provided.
tandav 5y ago
My hope that future internet will be decentralized
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  The past internet was decentralized (or at least, pluralistic)
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  Welcome back to USENET. What good is decentralizing the transport, if the sites and destinations and applications aren't?
yoloyoloyoloa 5y ago
Hackernews also censors stuff that goes against the official covid narrative.
thih9 5y ago
I’d prefer a more detailed analysis than two screenshots from a random conversation.
styluss 5y ago
Just tried sharing one of the links and it worked
sdeframond 5y ago
Meh, WeChat had been doing this for years. Who in their right mind would say China is a dictatorship? /s
tim333 5y ago
As a facebook and messenger user I'm fine with them censoring stuff. I use it to send holiday pics to friends and family etc. If idiots want to cause people to die by pushing covid misinformation then fine censor away. There are other forums if you want uncensored stuff.
beezischillin 5y ago
Any user of any Facebook property needs to understand well in advance that the company engages in active psychological manipulation and experimentation on its users and then decide if this clashes with their personal autonomy. Remember them talking about how they engaged in experiments on their users by trying to influence their mood via intentionally showing their various groups different types of content algorithmically on their news feed? Or when they intentionally kept crashing their Android app to see what’s their user retention rate even on faulty software? Or just open up the app on two phones of the exact similar make and model and see the app menu? My personal anecdote and experience with this is that they also use random errors to disguise bans. I have a personal and a dev account which I made the first time I accidentally got banned for 24 hours because it also reset OAuth app keys, the next time I got banned I logged in to my dev acct. and tried to make a post, since they managed to associate the two accounts, I ended up banned on that one, too. But it didn’t say that, it kept throwing random errors as if it was only a backend issue. These disappeared once my main ban was gone. So all in all my point is, people should understand that the platform outright does these kinds of things and use or find alternatives based on that
- mark_l_watson 5y ago
  I agree with you. I feel caught in a trap though: I really like the Oculus VR platform. I use it everyday to play quick games if ping pong or racket ball when I need to move around after sitting in my desk chair. Sometimes I spend more time on the Star Wars games, etc. But, as you say, I try to use their VR platform with some awareness of their business model.
  - beezischillin 5y ago
    I'm no better. I use it to keep in contact with friends, most of whom have moved to other countries but I try to maintain a backup. I also own an Oculus and have given credit for the Quest in the past as the closest thing to mainstreaming VR to date, it's unfortunate that it operates under Facebook but it's probably the only hardware business they'll have that'll hold any interest to me. I have a separate account for mine because I don't trust or like them (and I really dislike "social" features in games). That being said, I expect it to get caught up and destroyed eventually so I hope at that point the hacker community will have an answer to keep it working outside of the Facebook ecosystem. (There may already be one, I have not checked.)
adminscoffee 5y ago
dictators censor their people
aftbit 5y ago
There's a huge difference between shadowbanning users on a public forum and interfering with private chat. Network effects keep people on these shitty centralized plaintext messengers. The only way we'll put an end to this is to force Facebook to allow interop between Messenger and other services. Then at least people could gradually move to a more secure system without losing their whole network of friends.
xyzzy21 5y ago
Seriously why is anyone still using FB, TW, etc.?
Schnurpel 5y ago
Dump Facebook. Don't be a victim.

608 points by votick 5y ago

They've been doing this for years with porn, graphic shock sites, and conspiracy sites. Not sure why this needs to be reiterated, but if you even remotely value your freedom and privacy, never use Facebook again for any reason.

blunte 5y ago
It needs to be reiterated because many people missed examples like this in the past. Every new user needs to be made aware of what is really going on, and what Facebook thinks of them as.

mgraczyk 5y ago

The censorship is intentional on the part of Facebook, but the "silent" part is a frontend bug on messenger.com (possibly also the app). Normally it shows you a red "error" indicator next to the message that says something like "this goes against our community guidelines. The error can be seen in some of the screenshots. It briefly shows "couldn't send" and if you refresh the page the messages disappear forever.

snet0 5y ago
Without wanting to wade into the discussion, it is interesting that this comment has no replies as of yet. It's almost as though, to a lot of people commenting, discussion about fact isn't the intention. We're just here for the daily shit on Evil Corp.
- ziml77 5y ago
  There are replies to another comment about it being a bug. They are saying that's just a cover. Standard conspiracy stuff. But people are also questioning the whole idea of blocking messages at all. Everyone thinks they don't need to be protected, but the fact of it is that we're all vulnerable to manipulation. Hell, that's one of the issues that people take with media platforms. Their content selection algorithms and targeted ads are manipulative.

Barrin92 5y ago

That messenger is subject to facebook's community guidelines is nothing new, Zuckerberg said so himself publicly in an interview a few years ago https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-confirms-scans-messenger-app-texts-photos-2018-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-confirms-scans-mess...

polote 5y ago
It's e2e but we can your messages before you send them. Original Edit : it appears that it is not e2e by default
swayvil 5y ago
>That messenger is subject to facebook's community guidelines is nothing new This thing that you just said. This statement that you just made. The choice of phrasing. Is very weasel. Very corporate newspeak. It's got a kind of beauty. Like when Ash, from Alien (1979), speaks admiringly : "You still don't understand what you're dealing with, do you? The perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility...I admire its purity. A survivor...unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality."
theteapot 5y ago
That messenger is subject to facebook's ~~community guidelines~~ world view ...
cowpig 5y ago
Your phrasing seems to imply that - we should know that messenger being "subject to community guidelines" means silent censorship - Zuckerberg saying something publicly means it is justified I would disagree with both of those implied assumptions
- Barrin92 5y ago
  You should know it because you signed the terms of service which includes the statement, (in the beginning) that Messenger is subject to Facebook's community guidelines, which at the top of the page tell you: "As people around the world confront this unprecedented public health emergency, we want to make sure that our Community Standards protect people from harmful content and new types of abuse related to COVID-19. We're working to remove content that has the potential to contribute to real-world harm, including through our policies prohibiting coordination of harm, sale of medical masks and related goods, hate speech, bullying and harassment and misinformation that contributes to the risk of imminent violence or physical harm. As the situation evolves, we continue to look at content on the platform, assess speech trends, and engage with experts, and will provide additional policy guidance when appropriate to keep the members of our community safe during this crisis." https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/ https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/

TechBro8615 5y ago

This has been happening for years. Just try sending a message containing the string `joebiden.info` and see what happens. We’re way past the rubicon. Get your information as best you can and just hope you’re somewhat aligned with the mainstream.

ekam 5y ago
Just tried it and it sends without an issue
- toolz 5y ago
  I suspect they have flagged users that get filtered differently. I've been in comment threads where people say very similar things as myself with all the same keywords and I'll get a message days later about a submission being hidden due to some violations.
- koolba 5y ago
  Depends on how you do it. If it’s E2E then according to this comment from March 2020 it goes through: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23110664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23110664
- colordrops 5y ago
  I tried it during the election and it didn't work. Have uninstalled it since then so don't know if things have changed.
- swayvil 5y ago
  Well that was just an example. Of course they would not actually censor `joebiden.info`. Not on your life! They would censor other stuff, pertaining to other political leanings, and other scientific-medical subjects... You know, the badthink.
  - trophycase 5y ago
    What? 90% of the garbage circulated on facebook is republican qanon conspiracy theories at worst, and tabloid reactionary garbage at best.

rvz 5y ago

Don't worry, it's another 'accident' by the automated moderation systems; brought to you by Facebook. /s Do you really think that these companies are on your side or are your friends?

kevmo 5y ago
"Oh we are so sorry, please feel free to fine us $1 million. This was a rogue programmer!"

kevmo 5y ago

Facebook has been suppressing links and profiles that don't make them money for years.

sqqqqrly 5y ago
Why does anyone use fb? I never have had an account. I do help my mother-in-law with hers a bit. My company asked me to create a Twitter account. I deleted it a month later. The soln to bad speech is better speech.
- nvr219 5y ago
  I use Facebook because the groups I'm involved with IRL communicate on Facebook, or whatsapp (also owned by fb of course).
- rnd0 5y ago
  >Why does anyone use fb? If you want to communicate or reach out to people, you go where the people are. Currently that's FB. On a separate note, the problem with saying that the solution to bad speech is better speech is that it doesn't take crapflooding by bad actors into account. Your good speech is kinda worthless if it's drowned out by disinformation, lies or just plain non-sense.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

throwawayswede 5y ago

What's more frustrating than Facebook doing this is that there are people who support this solely based on the the type of content that gets shadow-banned, censored, or penalized. Even Tweet OP is trying to justify their opposition to this behavior by stating "im pro-science/vaccine/etc, but this not cool fb". To reiterate the same freaking point that gets spelled out on every post: IT'S NOT THE TYPE OF CONTENT THAT IS THE PROBLEM, IT'S THE METHOD. IF YOU'RE OK WITH THIS AGAINST ALEX JONES, YOU CAN'T COMPLAIN WHEN THEY START CENSORING ABORTION/LGBTQQIP2SAA HELP LINES. It's amazing to me that some people -especially millennials/zoomers who are left-by-default (read: without thinking, leftists to fit the group)- don't see selective blocking by an authority (even the state) is no problem, as long as it fits their views and it's only problematic when it's against them. IMO these same people are the prime target to become archetype republican later on in life, after they get disillusioned with their group and slowly start to spot hypocrisy. To be clear, both democrats and republicans are hypocrites.

fareesh 5y ago

GNews is where you can see the contents of the Hunter Biden laptop so that's why it's banned. Had the contents of some Trump family member's laptop been leaked to the media, Facebook would have it trending. This technology is used to ensure that preferred candidates have an advantage.

imwillofficial 5y ago
Everyone familiar with the political field in the US knows your comments is spot on. The down votes are sour grapes. The truth, it hurts so good!

blunte 5y ago

It's one thing to censor, but it's another to intentionally deceive your users into believing that they sent something.

edoceo 5y ago
Malicious?
- malwarebytess 5y ago
  Sort of. It's like shadowbanning/hellbanning. It solves a lot of problems for moderators and prevents angry people from escalating the situation into actually being banned. I've used it before as a moderator. For the above reasons, but mostly because I'm lazy and don't want to deal with angry people. Still censorship though. I think that ideally censorship ought to be communicated.
  - lmilcin 5y ago
    >because I'm lazy Yeah, you described it well. Start by understanding, Mr Moderator, there is a hell of a lot of difference between public posts and private messages.
    - cronix 5y ago
      Not if your goal is to censor a viewpoint. They are one in the same whether it's a viewpoint made in public or private - the main point of censorship is to not allow you to communicate certain thoughts. It amazes me that some posts here (not yours, but like the one you're responding to) have already seeded the censorship ground. For them it seems the question isn't whether it's ok to censor opposing viewpoints, but whether they should be told they've been censored. The censorship part is a-ok, but not if you're not informed?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - 5y ago

ZoomerCretin 5y ago

In case anyone is wondering what Pulitzer-prize winning piece she is attempting to share, check out her link yourself: https://gnews.org/1476750/ https://gnews.org/1476750/, as well as a fact-check disproving all of the dangerous and false claims inside: https://www.techarp.com/science/greenlight-ivermectin-japan/ https://www.techarp.com/science/greenlight-ivermectin-japan/ I, for one, am glad Facebook is censoring this baseless pseudo-medical advice being given which has been responsible for a massive increase in calls to poison control (https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-sees-spike-in-poison-calls-for-horse-and-cow-dewormer-ivermectin-despite-fda-warning/287-57a97ba4-ea7a-42b7-adda-e8618b35d9fd https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/texas-s...) Ivermectin causes “Nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain,” the director of the Texas Poison Center told TPR. “However, you can have further problems, including mental status changes, coma, even seizures… I haven’t seen any deaths here in Texas, but these are things that are reported by the manufacturer with people who use large doses.” https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/08/americans-poisoning-themselves-unapproved-covid-drug-ivermectin/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/08/americans-poiso...

deleted 5y ago
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ummonk 5y ago
The whole Ivermectin thing is dumb and stupid. But are you seriously saying silent censorship of links in Messenger is okay?
- voidfunc 5y ago
  Sure, its a private communication service. Why isnt it okay? You are using FB infrastructure to communicate, they absolutely should get a say in what you are allowed to share.
  - treesprite82 5y ago
    If you asked me to pass on a letter then I tell you that I've done so, you'd be annoyed if you found out that I actually just threw it away. If I told you up front that I wasn't willing to pass it on then you could find someone else to do so, but the silent nature inhibits that. Even without the silence, there's concern about the power and influence held by a few large social media companies with billions of conversations taking place through them. There's been some bipartisan interest in forcing them to either act more like a common carrier or be subject to the full responsibilities of a publisher.

franciscop 5y ago

Wait I thought this was known? I remember seeing this behavior with a friend when I had FB, and I haven't had FB for 3-4 year already.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
63 5y ago
I had a similar reaction. I specifically remember sharing a pornhub link (it was not porn, but a movie someone had uploaded to the site) as a joke, but it wouldn't send. I guess the difference here is what's being censored.
- lostmsu 5y ago
  Pornhub seems to be fine today.

treelovinhippie 5y ago

In Australia the government's (dubious) re-opening plan is based upon modelling by the Doherty Institute. Facebook censors anyone from sharing that report. Here's the link to try yourself: https://www.doherty.edu.au/uploads/content_doc/DohertyModelling_NationalPlan_and_Addendum_20210810.pdf https://www.doherty.edu.au/uploads/content_doc/DohertyModell...

encryptluks2 5y ago

This is why it is best to avoid centralized platforms like FB, Apple iMessage, Twitter DMs, etc.

void_mint 5y ago

Threads about censorship consistently remind me that HN is no different than any other social media platform, subject to users pushing various agendas and misinformation in support of those agendas. There's nothing wrong with private businesses removing content they don't deem appropriate. There is also nothing wrong with silencing users obviously lying. Thinking differently totally misunderstands social media as a medium.

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
Classic way to misunderstand the problem. When “the private business” is a group so large and dominant in their field that they can stop threats by absorbing them, lawsuits, or other tactics, they aren’t just “a private company” anymore. Your comment reeks of someone who doesn’t think it will ever be themselves that will be censored.
- void_mint 5y ago
  > Classic way to misunderstand the problem. I could same the same about yours. > Your comment reeks of someone who doesn’t think it will ever be themselves that will be censored. Not super concerned with social media posts being taken down, no, as that's always been happening. Websites moderate their content. What's the surprise? Also amusing name.

porlune 5y ago

I'm going to go on out on a limb and guess that this isn't really a case of censorship, because it's not like Facebook to not tell you directly that they've removed your content. Or they go the other route and post a disclaiming "fact check" under it.. but so far as silently removing posts, and marking them as "sent", seems more likely to be a bug. When I attempt to navigate to gnews.org the site is very slow, and I wonder if Facebook is having trouble assigning some kind of risk factor to it, then giving up, but ends up sending a "success" response anyway, whereby the front end just assumes the message was sent property and pushes it to your message cache without attempting to fetch it over the network. edit: since this has been down voted, could you explain why you think I'm wrong?

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Probably downvoted because IMO that's a very weak limb you're going on, and the behaviour you're describing probably seems unbelievable to many users. But well, maybe it is shitty coder(s) mishandling timeouts.
- porlune 5y ago
  That's not really explaining why (or how) I'm wrong, just that you don't believe me.. which is fine, but not constructive. It seems generally less believable that Facebook would censor people without telling them. Other commenters [0] appear to believe the same as I do, and note that FB typically informs the user that their action/behavior is against the site's terms of use. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28342263 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28342263
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    Shrugs, I didn't downvote you. Since people don't know whether your speculation is wrong or right (unless there's an FB developer around), they can only judge whether your speculation is plausible or not. And I guess they mostly thought it wasn't plausible.
    - 5y ago

Mikejames 5y ago

looks like it’s changed now, saying “couldn’t send”

cryptoz 5y ago

Microsoft silently censored MSN chats 20 years ago. Couldn't talk about PHP programming easily because any message with 'index.php' was silently dropped. Blew my mind they would dare do that, but I've since learned this is common practice at all major chat apps. If they don't like a message you are sending they are likely to silently drop it and let you think it was delivered. Just no care at all for the user experience at a base level.

Nextgrid 5y ago
I'm curious, what would be the reason behind banning index.php, especially considering it was a common feature of links at the time?
rnd0 5y ago
>Blew my mind they would dare do that, but I've since learned this is common practice at all major chat apps. I'm sure Discord will be no exception -though I can't think of any current examples that apply to it. That makes me worry about the way that it's displacing/has displaced IRC.

otterley 5y ago

Why anyone should care if you can't send links to websites run by kooky nutjobs with false or highly questionable COVID information to other people via FB messenger?

JasonFruit 5y ago
Because of the precedent that sets. For example, some would hold that socialism is as economically illiterate as anti-vaccine opinions are medically illiterate to you. Should socialist links be likewise censored?
- otterley 5y ago
  The precedent that privately-run internet messenger services can censor content was set a very long time ago. You’re decades late to that party. Besides, we’re not talking about political opinions here. If they ever do that (which is unlikely), then we can become justifiably upset. That’s a hill worth dying on — this one is not.
  - mgraczyk 5y ago
    About this case in particular, one problem I have is that they seem to censor the entire domain. Most of the content on that site is bad and definitely violates Facebook's rules. A lot of it is straight up lies made up by the site owner for political purposes. However, some articles on the site are just political opinions about the CCP. Because Facebook blocks those, I think the merits of this censorship at a coarse grain are worth discussing.
    - otterley 5y ago
      When 99% of your content makes the rest of it look good, you willingly assume that risk. Nobody should be shedding tears about this. Also, censorship is forbidden only to the government and to common carriers (which Facebook is not). Private parties (with very rare and reasonable exceptions) have the right to control what others do with their chattels.

ScaleneTriangle 5y ago

This is a bug. The intended behaviour is to notify the user that tried to send the link. Doesn't make it okay.

lmilcin 5y ago
I don't buy it. It is always "a bug" or some other excuse. Then we find out later it wasn't a bug after all. If you lie frequently enough you loose right for benefit of the doubt.
- ScaleneTriangle 5y ago
  Well considering that this behavior only appears in specific situations, I'm inclined to believe the bug claim.
kevmo 5y ago
Facebook always says everything is a bug. A year later, it is standard operating procedure.

ogsalmanxx 5y ago

Too many Facebook shareholders here that look the other way. Literal scums, the lot of them.

ajma 5y ago

I just tried with the same url and there's a message telling me it won't send

nightwing 5y ago
But if you send another message after that, then the indicator changes to delivered. May be a bug in adding a new feature caused by developer only caring about not sending the message part.

tonmoy 5y ago

The domain looks like fake new/sketchy to me (I could be wrong). Maybe there is a ban for the entire domain?

MattGaiser 5y ago

I get “couldn’t send” when I try that URL.

nikolay 5y ago

No too silently - it didn't allow me to send JotForms to our school parents claiming those links are not safe.

atok1 5y ago

This is another reason to only use E2EE FOSS messengers, ever.

loopdoend 5y ago
That would not prevent this.
- barbazoo 5y ago
  Assuming it's some kind of active censorship and not a bug, how would this be possible with Signal for instance?
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  E2EE would absolutely 100% prevent this.
  - lsh123 5y ago
    Unless filtering happens on the client (see recent Apple news)
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      That's where the FOSS comes in.
zaik 5y ago
You also should be able to host your own server instance and be able to communicate with others on the network (XMPP, Matrix, ...).
- atok1 5y ago
  Certainly agree with this!

darkhorn 5y ago

MSN Messenger was censoring some words, if I remember correctly like "Summer Jam" and "papaz". I was unable to find those words but I have found a related news article https://circleid.com/posts/07080616_msn_messenger_censor_info_domains/ https://circleid.com/posts/07080616_msn_messenger_censor_inf... Since Facebook was partially bought by Microsoft I believe Messenger is continuation of MSN Messsanger. I abandon such applications without hesitation.

foxfluff 5y ago
Yep, it was censoring messages containing specific words and links alike. Silently.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

efitz 5y ago

Big tech is out of control and drunk on their own power. Freedom of speech, even obnoxious, obscene, wrong, or even evil speech, has always been a core American value. Now, we have young people running these companies who think that they are wise enough to discern “good” from “bad” speech, and that they have a moral right, nay, a moral duty, to “protect” people from bad speech. Censorship has NEVER ended well. Anywhere. Anytime. Censors ALWAYS have the best of intentions, and always believe that they alone know the truth and that merely being exposed to contradictory ideas is harmful. And they always end up tyrants. I don’t care about anti-monopoly or section 230 or whatever. I’m asking my representatives to pass legislation that requires any company with a nontrivial user base or size (eg 1 million monthly users or 50 million annual revenue, pick your own numbers if you have better ones), to act as common carriers. That is to say, that they may not adopt TOS/TOU or preferential behavior that discriminates for or against any lawful activity or creed, period.

cblconfederate 5y ago

This isnt anymore even about freedom of speech but about a product constantly and intently manipulating and deceiving its users. It must be pretty shitty people working there, who relish in playing games with humans as if they're monkeys. Even their automated systems sound like total crap. I have a game on facebook for a decade, where users sometimes try to send some link to their friend through messenger. FB blocks it every few weeks and users have to beg them to unblock it every time. What a terrible company to invest in

efitz 5y ago

Wow, people on HN are really downvoting posts that take a position against censorship on this thread.

mwilliaams 5y ago
That’s really nothing new.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
userbinator 5y ago
Where do you think some "people on HN" work...? I'm not surprised.
betwixthewires 5y ago
I am beginning to think that threads get bum rushed whenever certain topics are broached.

akudha 5y ago

What do the engineers who code stuff like this think? Do they not feel bad or is it masked by the salary they get paid?

rnd0 5y ago
>What do the engineers who code stuff like this think? "Another day, another dollar"
- ergocoder 5y ago
  Trust me. The way activism is going, they would do it even with no money offered.
  - rnd0 5y ago
    Indeed, both the "woke" and the "alt right" are united in their love of repressing what other people have to say. You are correct!
    - DonHopkins 5y ago
      And complaining about how they're the victims of "cancel culture" when they're the ones trying to cancel people themselves.
ng12 5y ago
The majority of software engineers simply do not care. They're in it for a comfortable career with a fat paycheck.
brigandish 5y ago
They probably haven’t thought about it to any depth, just have a look at how many HNers - a crowd I’d have previously assumed to be against everything this story implies: censorship, lack of privacy, corporatism etc - will openly support these things on these very boards.
- 5y ago

userbinator 5y ago

The sooner the general public learns about steganography, the better. Unfortunately, the sentiment of anti-intellectualism and blissful ignorance propagated by corporate entities who realise knowledgeable users are more difficult to control and monetise will be a big hurdle against that happening. Edit: steganography, not stenography.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
I think you mean steganography (hiding secret message in plain sight), not stenography (techniques for writing/typing less).
- userbinator 5y ago
  Indeed. Thanks!

RicoElectrico 5y ago

Likewise you just can't send any links with duckdns.org domain. BUT you will get (or would have gotten) a warning about that.

avodonosov 5y ago

Youtube does this with comments - your UI makes impression the comment is posted, but it actually is not. (Sometimes the comment can also dissapear from your UI as well - I've tried editing a comment, but it fails saving and after page refreh the comment dissapeared. Reproduced that multiple times.)

apatheticonion 5y ago

Would be great if someone reverse engineered the Messenger protocol and wrapped it with a better messenger.

dicknuckle 5y ago
I use an alternative app to communicate over Messenger and it still relies on the same APIs. That said, the app is mostly unmaintained and actually does pretend to send messages with a banned domain. Friends were discussing antivaxxers and I had just received a link over SMS from an old acquaintance to an antivax video. I tried to send it through Disa.IM and it "sent" as far as I was aware, then a few minutes later I was using FB on a desktop browser and that message was showing some kind of failure message that it was against community guidelines. When I went to look at the app on my phone, the message with the offending URL was just gone. like it had never been sent. The feature clearly exists serverside and the alternative client doesn't have a way to handle that part of the API.
betwixthewires 5y ago
The protocol used to be XMPP, back a decade ago when I used Facebook I used messenger in a standard XMPP client. You could use it with pidgin/libpurple. Then they walled it off. It's better to just use something else.

anonymousiam 5y ago

Why is anyone still using FB? They've been arbitrarily censoring content for some time now. Back when the CoViD-19 lab leak theory was a "conspiracy theory" they actively removed that content. Now that it's no longer a "conspiracy theory" I guess it's okay to share links about it now. What has changed? The same goes for the Hunter Biden laptop story. Back when it was "Russian propaganda" it was censored. Now that it's been verified, I guess it's okay. Honestly, do you want FB deciding what is "truth" for you?

eyelidlessness 5y ago

I find it confusing that a community that frequently acknowledges that free services treat their users as the product simultaneously has expectations that the free service should amplify their speech. This, like many similar posts here, isn’t censorship. If you want to spread your idea (any idea at all) without hindrance, don’t do it on an advertisement platform.

strken 5y ago
It's censorship, and more specifically it's corporate censorship. When it comes to ranking a feed, you have more of an argument, but blocking direct and supposedly "private" messages on the basis of their content is censorship.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  Okay. I'll concede, Facebook is controlling what content is sent on Facebook's own network and services. How. Dare. They? I should be able to send whatever I see fit on their DMs right? Child porn? Coordinated mass violence? Pictures of patterns of holes that upset people with trypophobia? Credit scams? How dare they silence this Nigerian prince?
  - fragileone 5y ago
    You're moving goalposts. First you claimed that this wasn't censorship, now you're saying okay it is but it's fine for them to do so here. Censorship is unacceptable in private messages, there's already reporting functionality.
    - eyelidlessness 5y ago
      I’m saying none of those causes is censorship, Facebook has no obligation to send your private messages to anyone, and I was glib enough in saying so to include my own personal squick about patterns of holes in things to emphasize the point. If Facebook doesn’t want to send my message to you, that’s their choice. It’s not my right to send messages through Facebook and expect them to be delivered to you. Even if they contain horrific circles in a pattern that makes me squirm just describing them.

upbeat_general 5y ago

As another comment points out the screenshot clearly shows two red exclamation marks indicating it wasn’t delivered. You can take issue with the censoring (and I do) but it’s not silently censoring which is much worse.

spiderice 5y ago
What screenshot are you looking at? Because there are no red exclamations in the image on the linked tweet
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- proto-n 5y ago
  Next tweet in the thread shows them. First pic is cropped (not sure why)
  - upbeat_general 5y ago
    the tweet appears to be intentionally deceptive. They cropped the first picture just to remove the exclamation mark.
    - sdeframond 5y ago
      Is this about the exclamation mark though ? Or about the censorship ?
      - upbeat_general 5y ago
        “Silently censoring” is the key here. The censoring has been well-known for years. Most of the conversation I’ve seen in the comments has been about shadow banning which just isn’t related to what’s actually happening here.

scottydelta 5y ago

This is a form of shadow banning and it’s more common than you think. As a matter of fact, HN and Reddit do this too. If HN/Reddit think that you are posting promotions, *HN silently censors your post, claims it was posted*

travoc 5y ago
We call that a dark pattern.
- capableweb 5y ago
  No, a dark pattern (at least in terms of UX) is when you intentionally mislead someone in order to gain something. The purpose of shadow banning is to make it less obvious to the spammer that they triggered the spam filter, so they get less signals to work around. Same as websites who, instead of blocking access to (computer) users they think are scrapers, change slight details in pages like for prices and whatnot.
nullc 5y ago
HN reports that they no longer shadowban. Reddit absolutely does shadowban still, and rather capriciously and randomly.
- OrvalWintermute 5y ago
  Does that mean: A - They have unShadowbanned all previously Shadowbanned users? OR B - They are no longer actively shadowbanning users, but previous victims of Shadowbanning are going to stay that way? Am asking since there is a big difference between the two.
  - huibf 5y ago
    Both are false. They still actively shadowban users and already banned users have stayed banned.
    - 5y ago

michaelsbradley 5y ago

For those looking for a no-censorship-ever-of-any-kind alternative, consider Status: https://status.im/get/ https://status.im/get/ If you don't need or want a crypto wallet or dapp browser, then simply don't use those parts of the app. Relevant specs: https://specs.status.im/ https://specs.status.im/ https://rfc.vac.dev/ https://rfc.vac.dev/ Relevant repos: https://github.com/status-im/status-react https://github.com/status-im/status-react https://github.com/status-im/status-desktop https://github.com/status-im/status-desktop There are trade-offs, for sure: since there's (deliberately) no integration with contact lists (address books) of the OS or other apps, your social circle probably isn't using the app already, or in any case isn't discoverable. The public chats facility has turned out to be too spam-prone for "well known" / advertised chats, e.g. #status. However, if you create a public chat that has some unguessable component (e.g. #myfriends-a9e72ab5) and you share it with friends (even lots) in a reasonably private context, then the chances of it being spammed or randomly joined are quite low. Note that public chats, while "public", are still E2EE, using a chat's name as the basis for a symmetric key. 1-to-1 and private group chats are highly secure; the latter have a max size, and depending on their size and your device, sending messages can be a little slow. Creating a robust alternative to the existing public chats facility has involved a lot of work: the forthcoming Communities feature provides a discord-like facility whereby founders/admins of communities can take advantage of various mechanisms for moderation and governing membership. The Communities feature can already be enabled in advanced preferences of both mobile and desktop apps, but note it's a WIP. The moderation mechanisms for Communities don't undermine the no-censorship principle of Status because: (1) Any user can create a community. (2) A community's rules are managed by those with a stake in the community: there's no override by Status-the-org nor anyone else. (3) The underlying nodes of the network form a decentralized p2p network, i.e. there's no central actor/authority that controls the flow of messages. Re: (3), running a Status node should be simple and incentivized. The "incentivized" aspect is a challenging problem and not solved yet. Long story short, engineering an incentivized decentralized messaging network (it's not a blockchain!) is harder than incentivizing a blockchain network. That being said, the "simple" aspect isn't too difficult to solve, sneak peek: https://github.com/status-im/status-node https://github.com/status-im/status-node Finally, with pertinent laws and regulations in flux across the globe, there could come a day when binaries aren't readily available (from app stores, GitHub, etc.), but thankfully there's always `git clone` and `make`. Disclosure: I'm a core contributor at Status.

c0ckm4st3r 5y ago

Australians are building concentration camps as we speak. You sure you want to be on the wrong side of history?

bobthechef 5y ago

Not surprising. If you were a bit imaginative in the old days, and put your power hungry psychopath hat on (which is a fair description of those in power), you could imagine the ways technology could be used to silently produce net effects and results without anyone really knowing to avoid any protest. Here’s another one: Google can use your aggregate data along with other sources to determine whether you seem like someone favorable to the regime or not. If not, the probability distribution shifts in a way that directs you toward certain jobs and so forth that keep you from what the refine doesn’t want you near. It’s like a BigTech version of providence, except unlike divine providence, they don’t care about you. Or if they don’t like you, reveal unflattering information about you to people you know in ways that look like search results. Lots of possibilities. People are also too complaisant to protest things like these even when it’s made public.

NewNewGuy123 5y ago

Try posting anything from 4chan over messenger and see what happens

Threeve303 5y ago

If you’re trying to leave Facebook, going to WhatsApp might not be the best move.

shadowfkers 5y ago

The best thing about HN is https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest ... where you can find the least censorship.

gscott 5y ago

Speaking of FB censoring. They now censor my ability to "Like" or react it is fairly random. I will click like on something then Facebook opens a popup that says that I cannot like or react to posts because they will my liking has been harmful to others. Facebook has become unusable. I haven't posted in over a year but they have found new ways to censor.

pndy 5y ago
> I will click like on something then Facebook opens a popup that says that I cannot like or react to posts because they will my liking has been harmful to others Do you have this on screenshot by any chance or can you make one? It seems way too ridiculous and out of place - but then, I stopped using fb few years ago so things could "change"
- gscott 5y ago
  Here it is. They seem to call the "Like" function "Reactions" https://photos.app.goo.gl/QseWerYMd2jVbfpa6 https://photos.app.goo.gl/QseWerYMd2jVbfpa6

inetknght 5y ago

It's been my experience that Google Voice also silences many of the links that I share with people. Ultimately I stopped sharing links over several third party services that I've used for years and have transitioned to other services instead.

vdqtp3 5y ago
I think it was Sprint? that was blocking Signal invites over SMS messages. This sort of thing is widespread.

shadilay 5y ago

This is exactly how chinese censorship works. https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/wechat-surveillance-explained/ https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/wechat-surveillance-explained/

lysp 5y ago

I've had this happen to me for years. Sharing torrent links, pastebin and a few other sites that can be used for non-legal purposes.

gchokov 5y ago

Serious question guys, please help me understand. Why are we still using Facebook services at all? How many more bad practices should all of us, and even me tolerate…

nicce 5y ago
Not all people have the strength to leave social media with risk of leaving as outcast or losing friends. Even if those friends might not be worth it, if you lose them because of the platform. Dopamine addicition is also real. People should realize how dangerous it can be, when the main goals of these companies are to get their users to spend as much as time possible on their platforms to watch ads. But many have other things to do, than think stuff like this.
DoItToMe81 5y ago
If you run a business, you don't really have a choice. Cut that out, and you lose your ability to contact potentially millions of customers.

MrWiffles 5y ago

Isn’t messenger supposedly using “end-to-end encryption”? I honestly don’t know if I’m mixing this up with what’s app since I refuse to use either one. FB is a blight upon the world. Only a fool believes anything they say.

jreese 5y ago
E2E is not enabled by default, because that generally provides a worse experience (eg, no desktop/web access) for users who don't care about it. You can enable E2E encryption on any conversation by tapping on the conversation title, and enabling "secret mode".

nullc 5y ago

Facebook has been silently hiding messages containing targeted links for at least a decade. I had multiple reports of censoring people discussing my depaywalling of a large cache of public domain historical scholarly papers [1], and went and checked for myself. Messages which included the link to the documents were reported as delivered but not actually delivered. I believe they may have started it at the time of one of the high profile wikileaks document dumps. This experiences is part of why I and my partner have since refused to use their services. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/swartz-supporter-dumps-18592-jstor-docs-on-the-pirate-bay/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/swartz-supporter...

knodi 5y ago

Carriers in the US do this everyday. They block URL from being sent under the "spam" claim but no notice or information is ever provided.

tandav 5y ago

My hope that future internet will be decentralized

cblconfederate 5y ago
The past internet was decentralized (or at least, pluralistic)
DonHopkins 5y ago
Welcome back to USENET. What good is decentralizing the transport, if the sites and destinations and applications aren't?

yoloyoloyoloa 5y ago

Hackernews also censors stuff that goes against the official covid narrative.

thih9 5y ago

I’d prefer a more detailed analysis than two screenshots from a random conversation.

styluss 5y ago

Just tried sharing one of the links and it worked

sdeframond 5y ago

Meh, WeChat had been doing this for years. Who in their right mind would say China is a dictatorship? /s

tim333 5y ago

As a facebook and messenger user I'm fine with them censoring stuff. I use it to send holiday pics to friends and family etc. If idiots want to cause people to die by pushing covid misinformation then fine censor away. There are other forums if you want uncensored stuff.

beezischillin 5y ago

Any user of any Facebook property needs to understand well in advance that the company engages in active psychological manipulation and experimentation on its users and then decide if this clashes with their personal autonomy. Remember them talking about how they engaged in experiments on their users by trying to influence their mood via intentionally showing their various groups different types of content algorithmically on their news feed? Or when they intentionally kept crashing their Android app to see what’s their user retention rate even on faulty software? Or just open up the app on two phones of the exact similar make and model and see the app menu? My personal anecdote and experience with this is that they also use random errors to disguise bans. I have a personal and a dev account which I made the first time I accidentally got banned for 24 hours because it also reset OAuth app keys, the next time I got banned I logged in to my dev acct. and tried to make a post, since they managed to associate the two accounts, I ended up banned on that one, too. But it didn’t say that, it kept throwing random errors as if it was only a backend issue. These disappeared once my main ban was gone. So all in all my point is, people should understand that the platform outright does these kinds of things and use or find alternatives based on that

mark_l_watson 5y ago
I agree with you. I feel caught in a trap though: I really like the Oculus VR platform. I use it everyday to play quick games if ping pong or racket ball when I need to move around after sitting in my desk chair. Sometimes I spend more time on the Star Wars games, etc. But, as you say, I try to use their VR platform with some awareness of their business model.
- beezischillin 5y ago
  I'm no better. I use it to keep in contact with friends, most of whom have moved to other countries but I try to maintain a backup. I also own an Oculus and have given credit for the Quest in the past as the closest thing to mainstreaming VR to date, it's unfortunate that it operates under Facebook but it's probably the only hardware business they'll have that'll hold any interest to me. I have a separate account for mine because I don't trust or like them (and I really dislike "social" features in games). That being said, I expect it to get caught up and destroyed eventually so I hope at that point the hacker community will have an answer to keep it working outside of the Facebook ecosystem. (There may already be one, I have not checked.)

adminscoffee 5y ago

dictators censor their people

aftbit 5y ago

There's a huge difference between shadowbanning users on a public forum and interfering with private chat. Network effects keep people on these shitty centralized plaintext messengers. The only way we'll put an end to this is to force Facebook to allow interop between Messenger and other services. Then at least people could gradually move to a more secure system without losing their whole network of friends.

xyzzy21 5y ago

Seriously why is anyone still using FB, TW, etc.?

Schnurpel 5y ago

Dump Facebook. Don't be a victim.