Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Says It's Filtering Comments For Spam, Not Censoring Them
bhagwad writes "Apparently Robert Scoble tried to post a long comment on Facebook only to have a message pop up saying 'This comment seems irrelevant or inappropriate and can't be posted. To avoid having your comments blocked, please make sure they contribute to the post in a positive way.' If true, this is huge. For one the self-moderating system of comments has always been the rule so far. And with countries like India rooting for the pre-screening of content and comments, is Facebook thinking of caving into these demands?" Facebook says there's a more innocuous explanation: namely, that the comment triggered a spam filter.
Not sure how old this story is, but from among other things from TFA (well blog entry) that appear to be have updated over time:
2. My comment included three @ links. That probably is what triggered the spam classification system.
I don't use Facebook / Twitter but that along with other a few other characteristics of the message in question sound like a pretty reasonable way to set up a spam filter.
The article says they are rewording the message. On the other hand they wouldn't want to give too many hints on how to side step the spam filter. Spammers versus spam filters is a constant arms race
Try exchanging even private messages using the term 'xtube'. Yes, they censor.
I'm not paranoid - everyone really is out to get me.
Unless something new is discovered, it's probably just an unfortunate wording. Had Facebook not tried to be more clever than it is, the developer would just placed "You triggered a spam filter" in the comment, user would complain, and Facebook would work on the spam filter.
From the other hand, where were the hordes of Martin Niemoller quoters when the spam filtering was introduced in the first place? If were a Nazi I would first came for that guy, so he would not leave this quote.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
First post since 1999 to say...
Delete your fucking Facebook account, idiot.
Problem solved.
And actually, the guy who tried to post, is the reason why FB has so much power anyway. The blocked comment itself says he can't be bothered to read blogs anymore and he just watches FB, G+ and twitter. If you want to go swimming with sharks don't be surprised if you get eaten.
Oh, you must not remember the goatse ascii stuff the trolls made prolific here in the early days of Slashdot.
To illustrate Slashdot's own comment filtering system, Try pasing the following into a Slashdot comment three times and hit preview.
@}-,-`-
You'll get:
Filter error: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.
Try typing something like "OMG PONIES OMG OMG OMG" without quotes and you'll get:
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Yet, a quarter of the people I know on FB use both forms *extensively*. If only they'd filter those out.
Perhaps a poorly-worded attempt not to insult users by calling them spammers.
In this information age where data-mining, credit/reputation ratings, etc. are the norm, why do people who are aware of its draconian privacy aspects, potential for misuse and the time sink that it is, continue to use FB? This is a serious 87 billion dollar question.
Prolific spammer Facebook allegedly implements an anti-spam mechanism? In related news, Exxon has announced that henceforth its offshore drilling platforms will be called "environmental enhancement modules".
... how, exactly?
Have you actually tried to post on Slashdot recently?
I’m so glad I didn’t start a media business. It’s actually really tough to get new and interesting stories and to avoid falling into drama. People forget that Techcrunch was built step-by-step as a new publishing form was taking shape. PandoDaily doesn’t have that advantage and, is, indeed, facing competition from social networks that is quite good indeed. I no longer visit blogs. I watch Twitter, Google+, and Facebook, along with Hacker News, Techmeme, Quora. These are the new news sources. Plus, Pando Daily actually doesn’t have enough capital to compete head on with, say, D: All Things Digital or The Verge, both of which are expanding quickly and have ecosystems behind them.
There's nothing worth censoring in that comment, a guy made a post, the system flagged it as spam, it was a simple false positive. The fact that it's the first that we know of is pretty damn impressive, means that their system is probably working quite well.
I wish that the editors would quit with the sensationalist crap already, can we please use some common sense next time?
You forgot her day trips to Ladypartheroe and Chickenburnspath
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
http://www.wikihow.com/Permanently-Delete-a-Facebook-Account
https://ssl.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account
And even if you go through with the deletion process, you still have to avoid logging in (watch out for saved passwords on a laptop) for two weeks.
Nothing to see.
Good comment! I truly love how it is easy on my eyes and the data are well written. I’m wondering how I might be notified whenever a new post has been made. I’ve subscribed to your RSS feed which must do the trick! Have a great day! P.S. MicrosoftUggLiveBoots!
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
The message he tried to put really looked like the sort of thing bots post. I'm not surprised at all an automated spam filter blocked it. He did mention 11 different 3rd party websites in it, so its not too amazing that it flagged.
But as usual facebook is run by evil commies who want to oppress our free speech and all that.
I'm hungover
Bingo. If you're hung over, then you probably drank too much. Overdrinking leads to all sorts of excesses in risk-taking: promiscuous sex, abuse of drugs, poorly executed extreme stunts, violence against others, and other ridiculousness. Do you want others to judge you for this?
What'd be the difference between "filtering" and "censoring"?
How would you tell spam and non-spam apart?
Will I still be able to read what you filtered out as spam?
Why don't you leave the users themselves to trash what they consider useless on their own?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Sound to me more like a happy-go-lucky, family-friendly, no-negative-feelings allowed kind of filter.
You're only supposed to like stuff. It's anti-social to have sub-optimal feelings, citizen.
No, just you.
Caveat Utilitor
Why do you ask? Are you trying to drum up business for your psychologist friends, trying to make us all think we're paranoid? Isn't this exactly what the government wants, making us all think we're sick in the head for thinking certain thoughts or expressing certain opinions? You're probably a paid shill, working for the international industrial-military cabal. Either that, or you're a liberal know-it-all that is happily walking to his own shearing.
I'm warning you people - it's a cookbook!
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
Look at all the names he dropped,
I no longer visit blogs. I watch Twitter, Google+, and Facebook, along with Hacker News, Techmeme, Quora. These are the new news sources.
that's why it got filtered.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I know its their right as a commercial entity, but its wrong to filter anyone's content.
I hope more people find out and show their disapproval with their feet. ( i know, its wish full thinking )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I posted a youtube link that was on topic to someone elses youtube link on their status update and I got hit with a captcha challenge to prove I was human...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I have never regretted closing and deleting the Facebook page that I had. I'm even more glad that it didn't use my real name or ever have any pictures with me in them anywhere on Facebook. Facebook is a fucking social virus and I'll celebrate the day it comes crashing down in ruin. I'll also laugh and point at all of you who scoffed at my valuing privacy on the day that it finally dawns on you that you've screwed yourselves over six ways from Sunday by putting your entire life on the damned thing.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
That doesn't sound any different.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
to 1984 and Soylent Green.
One of the most insightful posts on Facebook ever - and there's damn few of them given Slashdot's rabid antipathy towards Facebook.
That goes beyond stopping spam. I've been blocked from linking several Slashdot articles that included mentions of U.S. intelligence agencies.
As I wrote in http://mbalog.robincheung.ca/farcebook-cens0ring-gymnastics/ for having a comment blocked for a "spammy link," when my post didn't even have a Link, nor anything that could plausibly be considered "spammy," I have to call attention to the idea that just because one wears a tin-foil hat to ward off mind-control rays, it doesn't mean that its true use isn't apocryphal until a later date (or, as John 20:29's reply to Doubting Thomas' "Dominus meus et Deus meus!" be paraphrased, "Thomas be blessed; for you saw and believed, but even more blessed be those who believed and did not have to find out cens0ring was already institutionalised through their own apathy.")
If it be a spam post, Farcebook already has a CAPTCHA system in place to verify that it is a human sender; beyond that, it doesn't matter what the content is because it's not up to Farcebook to determine if it is acceptable beyond any extant but cryptic disclaiming Acceptable Use type policies.
Unless you would it were, either by express wish or apathy.
...as of a few months ago. Someone posted one of those virus hoaxes that's been floating around via email for 12+ years and I informed them that it was such and linked to the related Snopes article. The comment was rejected because the linked url was "spammy".
Bingo! Unless Bubba was talking about how to make it bigger or talking about meds from Canada, I'm guessing he tripped the boo-hoo filter and they weren't going to let him post until he had the requisite number of happy adverbs!
And whatever you do, don't press the third shell.
First post to /. in a while, but nobody seems to ask the question, why does Facebook need a spam filter? Would not one just block connections or eliminate them from your network if they were spamming you?
I deleted my FB account a long time ago for the normal reasons:
1. It became clear that there was no real privacy policy, in particular with the platform changing my settings every policy update. I mean fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, I'm a fricken idiot right? No, second time was enough, delete account.
2. Complete drivel posts from people I barely knew had me spending less and less time on it, and slowly every time I would see it it was just annoying. It really is moronic.
3. A visit to a large telecom operator CEO in Asia, and he was bragging about how their ad agency put together this great campaign to promote their pre-pay cards, by creating 10's of thousands (yes, x0,000's ) of fake users that would go out and make friends with everyone they could and push the products. Bragging.....lol
4. The entire HB Gary scandal. I mean that it itself goes to show that there are people out there just dying to get into your network with real or fake personas and either data mine, scam you, sell something, identity theft, whatever. Six degrees of separation means....someday, somewhere it would be possible to implicate any Facebook user in a crime, fraud, scandal, etc. when in reality the user had zero knowledge or participation in that event. But it could appear that way and show very dubious circumstantial evidence through "connections". It will happen, you watch....a completely innocent someone, somewhere, eventually will go to death row because of implications through social connections and interactions showing "evidence" of participation. And once the legal precedence is set....wham.....everyone can be set up for anything by any person in power.
You could say I'm wearing a tin foil hat here. Then again you could say Facebook users are wearing a "Sucker Below" hat.
My advice is don't complain about Facebook censoring. Delete your account there are much better ways to show Grandma pictures of the kids....
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Note to self: Use his comment as template for spam.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Unfortunately, they're not just targeting spam. Try posting a link to fbpurity.com (which, combined with ffixer, are the only things that make facebook bearable to use, IMO) on your wall, and see what happens.
Facebook has begun actively inserting itself into the mono- and dialogues of users. While this is no different or scarier from what they have been capable of in the past, it forces shee^H^H^H^H users to acknowledge that fact for perhaps the first time. As such, I'm all for it.