Investigative Group

Facebook Blocks Daily Caller Story On FBI Texts — Blames ‘Spam’ Algorithm

Temporary_block_at_Facebook | Circa January 2015 | By MayorGalvan [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

Facebook on Friday blocked users from sharing a Daily Caller story on the 300 “missing” text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page that were turned over to Congress on Thursday night.

The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained and published the text messages early Friday morning. Sometime Friday afternoon, however, Facebook began blocking users from sharing the story with their friends, warning them that the story could be spam.

TheDCNF’s reporters attempted several times to post the story on Facebook, after readers began complaining that Facebook wouldn’t allow them to share the story. Each time, Facebook rejected the post with a caution message.

“Our security systems have detected that a lot of people are posting the same content, which could mean that it’s spam,” Facebook told users who tried to share the story. “Please try a different post.”

Facebook is keeping users from sharing this @DailyCaller link with the full Strzok-Page texts. Here’s what I got when I tried to post it: https://t.co/MH8TXCUc0N pic.twitter.com/7hx4UnODgh

— Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) April 27, 2018

A spokesperson for Facebook confirmed that the story “triggered one of our automated spam signals – likely because of the high activity that is mentioned in that alert,” adding that the company would take steps to correct the error.

At the time this article was published, Facebook was still blocking the story from its platform.

Follow Hasson on Twitter @PeterJHasson