back to article Meta blocked Distrowatch links on Facebook while running Linux servers

Facebook has lifted a temporary ban preventing users from posting links to popular OS comparison site Distrowatch – after going so far as to lock the account of the site's editor. In the latest installment of its weekly newsletter, the smaller site's editor, Jesse Smith, claimed his efforts to report the issue got him blocked …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Coming soon

    A META Linux distro with subscriptions (for bits that aren't GPL'd.

    Then any links to Distrowatch or to a specific Linux distro will be altered by its AI to point to their distro download.

    Zuck can FSCK along with the other billionaires he seems to be in bed with at the moment.

  2. HorseflySteve

    Meta got the AI they deserve

    With any luck, their AI bot will identify Facebook as a purveyor of false and misleading information & shut the entire network down!

    1. 3arn0wl

      Re: Meta got the AI they deserve

      That would me a beautiful thing.

    2. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

      Re: Meta got the AI they deserve

      Aw, you beat me to it.....

      but it won't happen, 'cause it'd make sense.

  3. Dinanziame Silver badge
    Facepalm

    I'm gonna assume incompetence

    It's not only that Hanlon's razor applies, I can't fathom any reason, even a scummy self-serving one, for Facebook to do that.

    1. AVR Bronze badge

      Re: I'm gonna assume incompetence

      Locking the account of the person complaining about it suggests there's an element of shooting the messenger at least. A more aggravated form of incompetence.

    2. cyberdemon Silver badge
      Devil

      openKylin

      Not to defend Facebork at all, but the original deleted post wasn't about Linux generally, but specifically about openKylin, which is a somewhat-shady Chinese Linux distro that er, definitely doesn't contain malware.

      The Reg article should have been clearer about that.

      What IS extra shitty/incompetent though is that Facebork seem to have extended it to ban distroWatch itself, just because one of their posts was about openKylin

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Let's make a vow!

        > What IS extra shitty/incompetent though is that Facebork seem to have extended it to ban distroWatch itself, just because one of their posts was about openKylin

        The next time we find something on Facebook that is "somewhat-shady", I think we should proceed to ban the whole of Facebook. There's clearly precedence being set here.

        1. LBJsPNS Bronze badge

          Re: Let's make a vow!

          What? You mean I'm not going to get a $750 rolling tool box for $49.95?

          I'm crushed. Crushed, I say.

      2. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: openKylin

        I wondered whether it might have been about systemd.

        Could you explain what makes openKilin somehat-shady?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: openKylin

          > Could you explain what makes openKilin somehat-shady?

          Well, duh, it is from China. /s

          These days, what more do you need to know? :-(

          1. StewartWhite Bronze badge
            Coat

            Re: openKylin

            So I guess I'll have to cancel my Deliveroo order for Peking Duck as well then?

            1. ianbetteridge

              Re: openKylin

              If you're ordering it from China it might be cold when it gets to you.

              1. StewartWhite Bronze badge

                Re: openKylin

                True story: John Lennon once ordered a curry from India that had to be flown over by plane so would definitely have been cold by the time it arrived although I guess he had somebody warm it up for him "Eh, Yoko, can you warm this curry up for us, la?"

            2. steviebuk Silver badge

              Re: openKylin

              Our local Chinese takeaway owners are from Malaysia

          2. Jeff3171351982

            Re: openKylin

            x, meta, and Windows 11 are from Murica.

      3. JoeCool Silver badge

        Re: openKylin

        The post starts "New distrowatch weekly talks about OpenKylin, ... "

        What is there to clarify ?

        Except perhaps, how that explains "Starting on January 19, 2025 Facebook's internal policy makers decided that Linux is malware and labelled groups associated with Linux as being "cybersecurity threats". Any posts mentioning DistroWatch and multiple groups associated with Linux and Linux discussions have either been shut down or had many of their posts removed"

        1. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

          Re: Facebook's internal policy makers decided that Linux is malware

          It would be so tempting to write up an order requiring all Linux to be immediately removed from any Facebook server with it installed, get it signed by Facebook's internal policy makers then carry out those instructions.

      4. allyngibson

        Re: openKylin

        Considering the number of ads I see for unlicensed, bootleg merchandise and the number of posts I got of AI slop movie posters, Facebook drawing the line between the "somewhat-shady" (OpenKylin) and the "actually shady" (bootlegs & slop) is the height of absurdity.

        1. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

          Re: openKylin

          Add on top the local seller groups with too many "obviously legal sourced" "three iphones new, still in original packing" things...

          (Between the normal private selling stuff)

      5. O'Reg Inalsin

        Re: openKylin

        I would have thought responding to the post with a personal opinion warning would be more effective than banning the post and the group.

      6. phuzz Silver badge

        Re: openKylin

        I can imagine how, on a technical level, mentioning openKylin, might trigger a block. However it was just a link to a page which included a review of installing and using openKylin, which is the top of a slippery slope that leads to Meta blocking any links to elReg because some of their news stories mention Meta in an unfavourable light.

    3. heyrick Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: I'm gonna assume incompetence

      "I can't fathom any reason"

      It's headed up by a foreigner, not an American, and since it's free the orange idiot can't slap tariffs on it..?

      Yeah, it's mind numbingly stupid, but that would make it fit right in with The New Normal in our Post Reason Times.

  4. Anonymous IV
    Flame

    Linux considered to be Malware? (by Facebook)

    It certainly makes a change from Windows being so regarded!

  5. blu3b3rry
    Mushroom

    Just in case there wasn't enough reasons to use Farcebook, here's another one. I shut down my account at least 8 years ago and haven't missed it one bit.

    1. The Travelling Dangleberries
      Coat

      One step beyond...

      I have gone one step further by not ever having opened a Facebook account in the first place.

      Mine's the one with the PinePhone in the pocket with my Mastodon feed open in Vivaldi.

  6. Howard Sway Silver badge

    Zuckerberg makes a speech declaring a new era of free speech on Facebook 7.1.25

    "Hey, everyone. I want to talk about something important today, because it's time to get back to our roots around free expression on Facebook and Instagram.

    I started building social media to give people a voice. I gave a speech at Georgetown five years ago about the importance of protecting free expression, and I still believe this today. But a lot has happened over the last several years. There’s been widespread debate about potential harms from online content. Governments and legacy media have pushed to censor more and more."

    That was a nice tidy 3 week long era of free speech absolutism, before effortlessly ascending to Musk levels of hypocrisy on the subject and instituting bans on truthful reporting.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Zuckerberg makes a speech declaring a new era of free speech on Facebook 7.1.25

      "Musk levels of hypocrisy"

      doubly so given that Meta is a member of the Linux Foundation.

  7. IGotOut Silver badge

    Don't let them off the hook...

    ...Zuck is scum, only interested in money and power.

    They could fix much of what is wrong with Meta, but over and over it gets blocked at the highest level, because after all, number must go up.

    I'll admit it, I'm on there because in the early days it was OK.

    Now it's the primary way I find out about live music events.

    I'm on Bluesky and it's a joy to only see posts from people I actually want to follow. The problem is it have 90% of the people I follow on there....yet.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Don't let them off the hook...

      > They could fix much of what is wrong with Meta

      The fundamental, unfixable problem with Meta (née Facebook) is the person who started and still runs it. Remember that he supposedly once said:-

      > Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [..] People just submitted it. I don't know why. They "trust me". Dumb fucks.

      I wouldn't condemn "Zuck" on the basis of that alone- many people behave like dicks as teenagers and grow into decent human beings.

      I'd condemn him because Facebook wasn't just run from the start in a manner that completely reflects that attitude- it still is, twenty years later. We're decades past any benefit of the doubt or opportunity to change.

      Everything he and the company have actually *done*- as opposed to blatantly hollow lip service- reflect that attitude. Contemptious of privacy, doing what suits them. He's still that POS.

      Facebook *is* that sociopath Zuckerberg. The rot is fundamental and always has been.

  8. wolfetone Silver badge

    Fuck Zuck.

    But make sure your anti-virus is up-to-date.

  9. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

    When will it block Zuckerberg?

    It is just a matter of random!

    Or, maybe, Facebook will block facebook.com links.

  10. Adair Silver badge

    Who needs Facebook?

    Apart from Mark Zuckerberg, nobody, least of all the planet as a whole. Why even bother reporting the dribblings of something so utterly unneeded and replaceable?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Typical right wing Facebook censorship

    Musk will be joining in next censoring speech about himself.

  12. Chris Gray 1
    Black Helicopters

    It's only to be expected...

    Well, the orange-haired one has done lots of things to move the USA towards fascism, and I think I've seen comments on El Reg expressing that opinion, so it must be true. A fascist state wants control of everything. It can't control Linux, so Linux must be banned. Facebook is only the first...

  13. Folda

    Stop reporting anti-vaxxes

    Better stop reporting anti-vaxxes then. Otherwise all mention of VAX and VMS will be blocked :-)

    1. Roo
      Windows

      Re: Stop reporting anti-vaxxes

      Sadly folks really have moved on from thinking VAXen are vacuum cleaners. Those were the good old days.

  14. Number6

    I put up a post with distrowatch,com in it and it's still there six hours later.

    Then again, I've had the bot take offence to something I posted a year earlier (and which I'd later set to viewable by only me) so it may just mean it's busy elsewhere.

  15. STOP_FORTH Silver badge
    Angel

    Considered harmful

    Big Ironically, the folks who browse around Distrowatch are the kind of people who have access to the hardware which underpins much of the Internet.

    It would be a real shame if Facebook/Meta disappeared completely.

    Not that I would ever suggest such a course of action. Those folks are also not petty fanatics. As long as you don't mention vi and Emacs.

    1. StewartWhite Bronze badge
      Joke

      Re: Considered harmful

      Even better to change "It would be a real shame if Facebook/Meta disappeared completely." to "It would be a real shame if Facebook were to have a nasty little accident - like being thrown from the top of a multi-storey car park" and have Michael Caine read it in the style of Jack (Get) Carter.

      1. KayJ

        Re: Considered harmful

        You're a big website, but you're out of shape.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bizarre

    That is bizarre behaviour. I'm beginning to think all billionaires are unhinged. I think it's the Diva ego effect.

  17. anthonyhegedus Silver badge

    Great Enshittening

    You won't get a response from Meta because the entity in charge has been shown to be an LLM himself.

    Seriously though, Facebook has become a mire of slop over the last few months. I scour my feed for posts from my friends, and have to wade through dozens of posts from AI-generated groups with names like "Modern restoration" or "Best van stories" full of content that's just clickbait - with the destination being a website that literally so full of ads that you can't find the content. There are also posts featuring animal cruelty and pornographic content that regularly feature in people's feeds.

    And yet facebook has the temerity to randomly block people for posting seemingly innocuous things, but when I try and report stuff that's clearly "dodgy", they say it doesn't trangress "community standards".

    The truth is that Facebook don't care (they can't, they're all LLMs). All they're interested in is advertising revenue (and the adverts themselves are often bordering on illegal if not actually illegal).

    It'll keep getting worse until the whole thing implodes on itself because people have stopped using it. The sad thing is that they could probably make it a nicer place if they didn't push the adverts so much, if they had real people doing much of the oversight, and if they blocked clearly dodgy content. It's not outside the realms of possibility to make AI filters for this stuff. But their revenue would go way down. They'd still be able to make a profit. However, the problem with billionaires is that they're greedy. A reasonable profit isn't enough, it's peanuts to them. They go for more and more and more at everybody's expense and make everything worse.

    This really is the Great Enshittening. We are entering the Shittocene Epoch.

    1. Altrux

      Re: Great Enshittening

      Absolutely right. The signal to noise ratio has been lowering for years, and it's now so low as to be barely detectable. It was fun for a while, back in 2007 or so, but now it's just a time-sapping waste of neurons.

    2. The Central Scrutinizer Silver badge

      Re: Great Enshittening

      Seriously though, Facebook has become a mire of slop over the last many years.

      FTFY

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Great Enshittening

      > There are also posts featuring animal cruelty and pornographic content that regularly feature in people's feeds.

      This was the last straw for me - deluged with fake 'animal rescue' videos by abusers, presumably because I followed a few local animal shelters. Zuck/Meta actively encourage this by allowing it to be monetized on their platform, and as you say, care not one iota, as long as the clicks, scrolling and ad revenue roll in. The worst possible level of sociopathic enshittification of what was once a useful app. A few explanatory messages sent to friends, then account deleted.

  18. Locomotion69 Bronze badge
    Mushroom

    Let's face(book) it

    You have to take your freedom of speech somewhere else.

  19. Altrux

    This Zucks

    Another step towards abandoning the FB mind virus after too many years. Only about 2% of my feed is actual updates from actual friends anyway, so I really should have stopped bothering long ago. Looking at BlueSky and Mastodon as one possible future, otherwise just Linkedin (unfortunately necessary for professional purposes).

  20. DrXym

    They also block Pixelfed

    They block links to Pixelfed presumably because it competes with Instagram. Pixelfed is more or less the same but without the algorithmic BS and it's federated so it works with other ActivityPub based services like Mastodon

  21. Fat-Boy-R-Dee

    Why are we still here?

    “Facebook is like that shitty bar you hate going to, but everyone in your social circle is there, and if you want to hang out with them you have to suck it up and deal with the really loud shitty music and the creepy aggressive bouncers and the watered down drinks" - a good buddy

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Update -- January 30 2025

    It was all a mistake.......the Meta AI robots made a mistake.....

    .....it's all OK now to discuss Linux on Meta platforms!!

    ==== NO SHIT SHERLOCK ====

    ....have I ever mentioned that neural networks CANNOT explain their conclusions?????

    ....and I note in passing that NVIDIA stock tanked $600 billion (with a "b") on Monday........

    ....please.....join up the dots............

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yo....$600 billion.....Not Pocket Change Then?

      https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinas-deepseek-sets-off-ai-market-rout-2025-01-27/

    2. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

      Re: Update -- January 30 2025

      > NVIDIA stock tanked $600 billion

      Oh phlueeeeaaaaase... "only" 500% up from 2022 to 1. Jan 2025, to lose then 15%.... Come back when they lost 50% compared to 1. Jan...

  23. 3arn0wl

    it was an error,

    apparently :

    https://m.slashdot.org/story/438309

    "This enforcement was in error and has since been addressed. Discussions of Linux are allowed on our services," said a Meta rep to PCMag.

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