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Facebook Social Networks The Internet Linux

Facebook Flags Linux Topics As 'Cybersecurity Threats' (tomshardware.com) 94

Posted by BeauHD from the that's-ironic dept.
Facebook has banned posts mentioning Linux-related topics, with the popular Linux news and discussion site, DistroWatch, at the center of the controversy. Tom's Hardware reports: A post on the site claims, "Facebook's internal policy makers decided that Linux is malware and labeled groups associated with Linux as being 'cybersecurity threats.' We tried to post some blurb about distrowatch.com on Facebook and can confirm that it was barred with a message citing Community Standards. DistroWatch says that the Facebook ban took effect on January 19. Readers have reported difficulty posting links to the site on this social media platform. Moreover, some have told DistroWatch that their Facebook accounts have been locked or limited after sharing posts mentioning Linux topics.

If you're wondering if there might be something specific to DistroWatch.com, something on the site that the owners/operators perhaps don't even know about, for example, then it seems pretty safe to rule out such a possibility. Reports show that "multiple groups associated with Linux and Linux discussions have either been shut down or had many of their posts removed." However, we tested a few other Facebook posts with mentions of Linux, and they didn't get blocked immediately. Copenhagen-hosted DistroWatch says it has tried to appeal against the Community Standards-triggered ban. However, they say that a Facebook representative said that Linux topics would remain on the cybersecurity filter. The DistroWatch writer subsequently got their Facebook account locked... DistroWatch points out the irony at play here: "Facebook runs much of its infrastructure on Linux and often posts job ads looking for Linux developers."

Facebook Flags Linux Topics As 'Cybersecurity Threats' More | Reply

Facebook Flags Linux Topics As 'Cybersecurity Threats'

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  • Somehow this doesn’t surprise me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Trevin ( 570491 ) on Monday January 27, 2025 @06:10PM (#65123489) Homepage

    Linux users tend to be keenly tuned in to issues of freedom, be it freedom to control the use of your own computers or freedom in politics. This feels like the corporate tech elites are trying to restrict our freedoms so they can control our computers (e.g. “Trusted Computing” and “Digital Rights Management”) just like they’re largely controlling social media.

  • They're admitting it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JamesTRexx ( 675890 ) on Monday January 27, 2025 @06:11PM (#65123493) Journal

    "Facebook runs much of its infrastructure on Linux and often posts job ads looking for Linux developers."

    In other words, Meta/Facebook is a criminal organisation presenting a large security threat and should be taken down at once, by their own indirect admittance. Zuck in handcuffs in 3, 2, 1..

    • "Facebook runs much of its infrastructure on Linux and often posts job ads looking for Linux developers."

      In other words, Meta/Facebook is a criminal organisation presenting a large security threat and should be taken down at once, by their own indirect admittance. Zuck in handcuffs in 3, 2, 1..

      Wasn’t this the same CEO that went on THE American podcast (Joe Rogan), practically bragging about how they’ve realized the error of their censorious ways and how “bad” Government was for practically forcing them to just follow orders with biased political censorship for years? THAT Cambridge Analytica scandal? The fuck gives here?

      And Linux of all topics? What kind of Mega-Maid bong is Zuck hitting to assume he’s gonna suck THAT topic back in the genie bottle with Facebook b

      • Wasn’t this the same CEO that went on THE American podcast (Joe Rogan), practically bragging about how they’ve realized the error of their censorious ways and how “bad” Government was for practically forcing them to just follow orders with biased political censorship for years?

        I agree with you on the whole, but at the same time I'm a little bit sensitive to what business owners go through. Especially at the scale of a massive enterprise. You are living in a political landscape where you've got no shortage of government agencies and agents ready to make your life difficult, which can benefit your competitors who are playing the exact same game as you are forced to.

        My personal criticism of Zukerberg and Jack Dorsey (before Musk bought Twatter) is that they should have cried uncle.

  • On the flip side (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Monday January 27, 2025 @06:13PM (#65123497)
    I see Zuck and all things Meta as Cybersecurity Threats and a major threat to the Public Good!

  • This is ironic because zstd was made by FB/Meta, and is a de facto standard for compression. Meta also did a ton of work with btrfs to make it a lot better for the enterprise.

    Of all companies, maybe they should be the ones wanting to attract the Linux and F/OSS writers?

    • They have released and maintain a ton of OSS. But that isn't this. Hiring isn't necessarily related to use of the site at all.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 )

      This is a hilariously precious view of how companies the size of FB operate.

  • Follow the money. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Major_Disorder ( 5019363 ) on Monday January 27, 2025 @06:19PM (#65123519)
    I wonder who paid them to do this.

    • Re:Follow the money. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kwalker ( 1383 ) on Monday January 27, 2025 @06:38PM (#65123581) Journal

      What makes you think this is malice instead of stupidity?

      Facebook (And Google, and Microsoft, and...) have put "AI" in charge of a lot of their boring and repetitive work. Then they stopped watching it. Now contacting support is a swamp of AI bullshit until a problem gets picked up by "the media" then someone higher-up at the target company gets notified and intervenes. How many news stories have we seen where Big Tech brings down the ban-hammer on someone for something stupid (or incorrect) and it takes a trip through "The Media" before they get contacted by "the company" and it all gets cleared up quick-like? How many?

      What's more likely? Someone pays them to blocklist this, or someone mis-trains a bot which blocklists this?

      • Because at Facebook scale monetary incentives seem more probable.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        What makes you think this is malice instead of stupidity?

        Stupidity rarely (if ever) results in a 1.67 trillion dollar market capitalization.
        Malice however can trivially result in such a thing and there are countless examples of this happening.

        Now contacting support is a swamp of AI bullshit until a problem gets picked up by "the media" then someone higher-up at the target company gets notified and intervenes. How many news stories have we seen where Big Tech brings down the ban-hammer on someone for something stupid (or incorrect) and it takes a trip through "The Media" before they get contacted by "the company" and it all gets cleared up quick-like? How many?

        Technically zero, but only because you qualified it as dependent on being a problem.

        Companies don't care about being correct/incorrect, they care about money.
        Being wrong isn't a problem. Not making money is the problem, and that remains true even if being wrong causes the not making money.

        Right now this isn't costing them m

      • What makes you think this is malice instead of stupidity?

        Facebook (And Google, and Microsoft, and...) have put "AI" in charge of a lot of their boring and repetitive work. Then they stopped watching it. Now contacting support is a swamp of AI bullshit until a problem gets picked up by "the media" then someone higher-up at the target company gets notified and intervenes. How many news stories have we seen where Big Tech brings down the ban-hammer on someone for something stupid (or incorrect) and it takes a trip through "The Media" before they get contacted by "the company" and it all gets cleared up quick-like? How many?

        What's more likely? Someone pays them to blocklist this, or someone mis-trains a bot which blocklists this?

        My guess would be some moderation bot's "training" consisted of trawling social media posts and grabbing random rants as guidelines. I've seen Linux called a virus, a plague, a threat to real computing and several other similar slights through the years on discussion sites. Though I avoid Facebook myself, I'm sure those conversations take place there as well. All it would take is enough repetition of that nonsense and an AI would integrate those rants into its ruleset. Weights, without specific guardrails b

    • I hate that saying. Why don’t you follow the money and tell us where it lead?

  • They got on someone else's naughty list (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thogard ( 43403 ) on Monday January 27, 2025 @06:23PM (#65123533) Homepage

    They are using some other compline's list of bad sites and they won't say who so you can't get off that list. My own personal site was on it for a number of years and then started working again.

  • Is this an isolated group within Facebook who read a couple articles about how Linux enables some negative things, therefore Linux=Bad?

    Suddenly I wish Linux had a 30% desktop market share and someone in that group suddenly realized they had Linux on their desk...

    • Re:Chicken Little (LINUX) (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Shaitan ( 22585 ) on Monday January 27, 2025 @06:27PM (#65123549)

      Probably. They are in the process of converting from their old heavily biased and draconian censorship regime to a community driven system (community notes). It's likely just some transitional growing pains and a bunch of kneejerking.

      • Reality determined by consensus, not facts. What's the worst that could happen?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shaitan ( 22585 )

          Spoken like someone who hasn't spent much time on philosophy. How does one know facts? We must observe them, whether recorded in an instrument reading or observed directly we observe them. But what about optical and audible illusions, the power of suggestion, mind altering substances/gases/physical states? Seeing might be believing but it is trivially demonstrated that it shouldn't be. There isn't a perfect answer for this but the best we have is consensus, many of the flaws in human perception are alleviat

    • Suddenly I wish Linux had a 30% desktop market share and someone in that group suddenly realized they had Linux on their desk...

      No need to wish for that, much as I'd like to see it happen. All you need to do is show them how they're using it already, on computers running elsewhere. [linkedin.com]

      And that's just a sample from a much longer list.

  • Thats funny... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by zurkeyon ( 1546501 ) on Monday January 27, 2025 @06:32PM (#65123563)
    Because as a Career IT Technician, I have flagged Facebook as a cybersecurity threat for decades ;-D

  • Facebook's business model (Score:5, Insightful)

    by laughingskeptic ( 1004414 ) on Monday January 27, 2025 @06:40PM (#65123589)
    Is to capture and direct eyeballs to paid advertising ... the value of conversations about Linux are likely less valuable to Facebook than other ways people can be wasting their time on Facebook.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AvitarX ( 172628 )

      I would think people that make more than average money and are more likely to be involved in the decisions on purchases of enterprise software would be prime advertising.

  • Translation: Win/Mac are government pwned (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 ) on Monday January 27, 2025 @06:45PM (#65123609)

    If there was a sign that the government has back doors into into everyone's computer, it's that running an open-source OS is considered a threat to national security.

    • Why would you ever think they werent?

      Secure computing literally translates to pre-pwned hardware.

    • If there was a sign that the government has back doors into into everyone's computer, it's that running an open-source OS is considered a threat to national security.

      No, running Linux is a threat to profits. The CPUs you are using are still back-doored, so if you were ever to become a security concern to the nation, they would be able to see everything you are doing even if you do not have an internet connection. (the CPUs have wireless modems built in since at least 2012, some models had the modem earlier than that.).

  • Facebook is fully invested in the surveillance culture and Linux is not. Apparently this is enough for Facebook to label the open source operating system as evil even though they use Linux themselves. This sort of people never seem to have any trouble with the "Rules for Thee and Not for Me" philosophy.

  • ... to be talking about Linux, as this requires a level of interest in technology not commonly found among the Facebook population. Likewise, I know hardly any Linux enthusiast who is also active on Facebook. And I bet that includes most of Facebook's own personnel running their Linux servers.
  • You're Temporarily Blocked [i.ibb.co]: “It looks like you were misusing this feature by going too fast. You've been temporarily blocked from using it.”

  • I got a direct response from Zuckerberg and he said that Linux is for high paying developers at FB and AWS and they don't have time to waste on FB. FB is primarily for losers and they don't know anything about Linux, so the ban is justified.

    /end-sarcasm/

  • Where's gigolo wannabe Zuck and his BS about free speech and all that, huh!?!!

  • What the hell is Facebook? Never heard of it...
  • Why the fuck is anyone using facebook for anything at all? Do they have to come to your house and sodomize you before you realize how abusive they are?

    • Like Ariel sang, I wanna be where the people are.

      I have a bluesky account, and I use it. And I encourage others to do so. It's going only slightly better than other times a new social network has come up.

  • Twitter, Tumblr, TikTok and Facebook are being imitated in both the ActivityPub and AT protocols. People can rebuild their accounts on Mastodon or BlueSky sites, or build their own hosting, which can never be cancelled. If moving to Mastodon/Bluesky happens sufficient times, Twitter/X and Facebook stop controlling the conversation and stop controlling the facts.
  • I thought Suckerberg had gone all-in on freeze peaches or something. I see that didn't last long. #zuckerpunch

    • "Free Speech" is now a code-word that means, "Speech supporting the corporations and the current presidential administration." We have to remember that definitions are now is flux. Words don't mean what they used to mean. Truth is flexible. Facts are alternative. Reality is no longer real.

  • Simple. (Score:3)

    by msauve ( 701917 ) on Monday January 27, 2025 @09:33PM (#65123913)
    #deletefacebook

  • DistroWatch points out the irony at play here: "Facebook runs much of its infrastructure on Linux and often posts job ads looking for Linux developers."

    Is that really ironic... Making malware like the FB app is a big part of their business.

  • "Sir, we run Linux," said one of Zuck's employees.

  • Simple answer here (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DrXym ( 126579 ) on Tuesday January 28, 2025 @03:52AM (#65124271)

    If technical sites are being arbitrarily blocked by Facebook they should reciprocate and pretend it doesn't exist. Same for Instagram. There are federated alternatives out there like Lemmy, Pixelfed, Blue Sky etc.

    In fact, it might be a nice set of articles to explain how anyone can grab containerized versions and get them up and running on a domain and seed interest in these platforms.

  • Sounds almost like it's april 1, im glad i only use reddit, to get answers to questions not to see pictures of someones dinner or their visit to Vienna or to buy a used hair dryer or whatever the hell is going on over there in mainstream cuckoo psychosis land.

  • It's like Zuck and team are just trying to drive away a majority of their users.

  • I suspect this is Donald's pressure on Zuck because Distrowatch is a Danish outfit and Donald isn't happy that the Danish told him to "F" off regarding taking over Greenland, its follows the same deal as comments Donald made about Panama... you know Donald is facing TAX EVASION charges in Panama?

    just BLIND OBEDIENCE on ZUCK's part. ALL HEIL MAGAtron...leader of the Deceptikons.

  • I have made several posts today about linux, with links to distrowatch. I am not seeing anything like what is being described and all my posts remain up.
    I am hesitant to believe this reporting as it is not what I am witnessing first hand.

  • This was going to be the year of Linux on the Desktop, then some Tech Bros. get all fearful of it. And Linus didn't donate enough money to sit on the front row at inauguration (not that he wanted to....).

    World's going to hell! Mildly shocked no one has put together a concerted effort to speed things along.

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