Facebook temporarily prevented users from sharing links to WikiLeaks pages exposing corruption in the Democratic National Committee just days prior to the Democratic National Convention.
Over the weekend, various Facebook users reported receiving a message about spreading malicious material when they tried to share links to WikiLeaks:
The emails leaked by WikiLeaks show the DNC attempting to conspire against Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) presidential campaign.
A Facebook representative told Gizmodo the ban was a result of Facebook’s spam filter incorrectly flagging the material. The representative said Facebook “quickly corrected this error on Saturday evening.”
Although the ban on sharing WikiLeaks links was allegedly due to Facebook’s spam algorithm, this is not the first time the social media giant has come under fire for censoring information. Former Facebook employees admitted that they routinely suppressed and censored conservative news as part of their role as “news curators.” As curators, the Facebook employees were able to craft and shape narratives on a website that millions of users read every day for their primary news source.
It just so happens, in this instance, preventing users from sharing material that embarrasses Democrats was built into Facebook’s code.