Facebook Faces Backlash for Marking Coronavirus Posts as Spam

3 years agoWords By Liz Bautista

Facebook has been flagging posts related to the COVID-19 as spam, The Verge reports after discovering user complaints on Twitter. Facebook's vice president of integrity, Guy Rosen, has since confirmed that the error was due to a bug in the company's anti-spam system.

Taking to Twitter, Rosen pointed out that the bug and the company's decision to have content moderators work from home (which Alex Stamos, Facebook's former chief security officer, said could affect changes in its moderation system) were unrelated.

In a follow-up tweet, Rosen added that Facebook has restored all the posts that were incorrectly removed. Read below.

We're on this - this is a bug in an anti-spam system, unrelated to any changes in our content moderator workforce. We're in the process of fixing and bringing all these posts back. More soon.
— Guy Rosen (@guyro) March 17, 2020

We’ve restored all the posts that were incorrectly removed, which included posts on all topics - not just those related to COVID-19. This was an issue with an automated system that removes links to abusive websites, but incorrectly removed a lot of other posts too.
— Guy Rosen (@guyro) March 18, 2020

On Tuesday, users took to Twitter to complain about the issue, stating that the social network notified them that their posts violated community standards, even if the news was shared from reputable sources. Check the tweets below.

To view this external content, please click here.

.@Facebook -- Oh wow and then three in a row !

How is @TomHanks being okay be SPAM? And again this is from @Upworthy not exactly a new publication. All I did was share it. pic.twitter.com/SYhYknzJ9Z
— Kristine (@Schachin on Spoutible too) 🇺🇦 (@schachin) March 17, 2020

To view this external content, please click here.

Facebook decided that my posting of this Times of Israel article is spam. (It’s not spam.) pic.twitter.com/3NqUbiwmyi
— Mike Godwin (@sfmnemonic) March 17, 2020

Posted @ginarush's piece from the other day along with a comment about my own experiences on Facebook. Today I was notified that my post had violated the community standards of spam

🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃 pic.twitter.com/Nfpvlb7YSA
— Luke (@coolhandIeluke) March 17, 2020

Facebook is flagging all coronavirus-related web links as spam and breaching community standards. Happening right around the world https://t.co/8reJQ8OZGC
— Gianni Borrelli (@gianniborrelli) March 17, 2020

We're on this - this is a bug in an anti-spam system, unrelated to any changes in our content moderator workforce. We're in the process of fixing and bringing all these posts back. More soon.
— Guy Rosen (@guyro) March 17, 2020

In late February, Facebook made plans to crack down on posts that peddle lies about the outbreak in an attempt to curtail the spread of misinformation and fearmongering.