Facebook Marks Linux Discussions as 'Cybersecurity Threats
A recent post on the site reveals some pretty concerning news: apparently, Facebook’s internal decision-makers have labeled Linux as malware and flagged groups related to Linux as "cybersecurity threats." Crazy, right? Just the other day, we tried sharing a little blurb about DistroWatch.com on Facebook, and it was blocked with a message pointing to their Community Standards. DistroWatch mentioned that this ban kicked in on January 19, and since then, readers have been struggling to share links to their site on the platform. Some folks have even reported that their Facebook accounts got locked or faced restrictions after posting about Linux topics!
If you’re thinking maybe there’s something specific on DistroWatch.com that could’ve triggered this, it seems safe to say that’s not the case. Reports indicate that several groups focused on Linux discussions have either been shut down or had a lot of their posts wiped out. We decided to test the waters by posting about Linux on Facebook ourselves, and oddly enough, those didn’t get blocked right away.
DistroWatch, which is based in Copenhagen, has tried appealing the ban, but they were told by a Facebook rep that discussions about Linux would still fall under that pesky cybersecurity filter. To make matters worse, the writer from DistroWatch ended up getting their Facebook account locked too. It’s frustrating to see the community facing these hurdles just for talking about something they’re passionate about!
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