Facebook Bans Fake News Detector… For A Few Hours

Last month we covered a browser extension called “BS Detector”, designed to flag links to certain news sites as “unreliable”. According to creator Daniel Sieradski, the plugin’s website was banned by Facebook today, before being allowed through again a few hours later.

Sieradski posted his discovery via Twitter:

https://twitter.com/selfagency/status/804701142064267264

He then claimed Facebook would eventually remove the ban, citing it as “accidental or automated”:

https://twitter.com/selfagency/status/804766814995673096

While the ban was indeed lifted, Facebook (unsurprisingly) remains quiet on the issue. I don’t think the company really cares what extensions users install (other than ad blockers) and it probably was unintentionally denied by an automated system.

Anyway, with the issue resolved, there’s no need to linger at the scene.

[Twitter, via BGR]

Originally published on Lifehacker Australia.


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