Very intresting. This is what I've got when trying to post it on facebook:

You can't post this because it has a blocked link The content you're trying to share includes a link that our security systems detected to be unsafe:

http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-partys-over-eu...

Please remove this link to continue. If you think you're seeing this by mistake, please let us know.

And other entries from the same guy can be posted without any problems. FB is saying that their "security systems" detected the link "to be unsafe", but comparing source of that particular post with other posts, I don't see any significant difference (except for the text, of course). Sounds like the text itself contains information which is unsafe (for FB).

> And other entries from the same guy can be posted without any problems.

Well, other entries don't bad-mouth Facebook.

They also did that with links to a respected UK male suicide prevention charity - "The Campaign Against Living Miserably".

https://thecalmzone.net/2015/06/ask-facebook-to-remove-the-b...

That page says it's fixed, but it seems that FB is providing the wrong preview, linking to http://www.thecalmx/ instead of http://www.thecalmzone.net/

This spam filter carries a small risk of death, so it's pretty frustrating.

I also cannot share this on FB. Amazing. The fact that FB is censoring this content deserves its own HN exposure. It is an article about international law with nothing offensive, but FB blocks it.... this is going further than I'd have thought FB would ever do. The future doesn't look so bright for social media.

This was a mistake due to this specific blog post sharing some design elements as some spammy blogspot posts and it was fixed. If we really wanted to censor this story wouldn't we block all criticism of Facebook and not a pretty straightforward and well-reasoned analysis of Safe Harbor? Wouldn't we block the "I declare that I am a wizard and Facebook can't use my content blah blah" memes?

"... due to sharing some design elements..."

But someone downthread said the .co.uk version was not blocked (before you unblocked the .com). Are you implying the .co.uk version did not have the same "design elements"?

As to your proposed argument, I think selectively blocking well-reasoned analysis by law professors and letting memes go unblocked makes the most sense for your company.

Probably because this post was getting lots of links for a domain that is otherwise rarely seen on FB? You can read about the challenges of spam-fighting at scale (and people actually getting paid to write Haskell) here: http://www.wired.com/2015/09/facebooks-new-anti-spam-system-...

> Are you implying the .co.uk version did not have the same "design elements"?

Classifiers do weird things, and features you don't expect to be significant can suddenly have a much larger than intended effect. The domain name, as a feature, must've thrown it over the edge.

It's like that Google+ post where a picture of a couple of black people got tagged as "gorillas" by their auto-tagging ML system. No, Google isn't racist, their classifier just hates their PR department.

Ah, the joys of machine learning...

Interesting... other blog posts by the same author on the same blog were not blocked, just this one particular post. I find it not a coincidence that the post mentioned Facebook quite a bit, and thus it was blocked. I am doubtful this was due to "design elements" without more details.

If people can't tell the difference between your spam filter and a censor, at least you've passed the Turing test.

Thanks for fixing this. I personally did not assume this was necessarily censorship, but don't be surprised by the reaction of users though, I think you'll see more of these reactions for a while, after the Safe Harbor ruling.

True. I doubt facebook will do anything that prevents a healthy discussion (unless its unlawful) for its USP is users.

You are surprised facebook is censoring content on a massive scale? Wake up sheeple! Move to a decentralized, open-source platform like diaspora* if that type of thing bothers you, do away with facebook like we dropped myspace

I can understand some degree of censorship like pornography, very explicit violence, etc. But this is just an article about a very public issue. FB has no problems with other divisive issues getting shared, so I'm quite surprised to see this level of blatant censorship on this particular article.

The corporation is owned by the same entities that own the mainstream media outlets, if something goes against their agenda, facebook with outright censor it or prevent others from seeing it.

This is one of the very reasons why I "deleted" my Facebook account three years ago and never looked back.

I for one do not welcome our new content curating overlords.

http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/ works and (for now) shows the same content. Disgusting.

Please report it to them - the more reports the better.

why would anyone report it? Facebook owes me nothing

I managed to post through a shortener with no issues

http://goo.gl/NMy9In

And then I managed to post the plain URL.... maybe they've unblocked it, or it's not blocked from within the EU.

Can you screenshot that and show it to us?

Checked it, indeed it is blocked. http://i.imgsafe.org/d64b8e5.png

Same here in France: https://twitter.com/thibaut_barrere/status/65423399540481638...

You could try this link instead. https://www.blogger.com/feeds/8704899696538705849/posts/defa...

It will give the contents of the blog, but not sure how modern browsers will render it as is. However if you save to a file with an .html extension then open in browser it should look fine.

Using .co.uk extension on the blogspot URL instead of .com may also work, as another commenter has suggested.

It's quite telling that FB would block links that talk about FB in a negative way. The one true test of the long term viability of any medium is whether or not that medium is managed hands-off to the point that discussing the medium itself critically does not lead to the discussion being squelched. FB it appears does not pass that test.

It would be interesting to see what other links that discuss FB can not be shared there and even more interesting at what level of FB the directive initiating this blockage originated.

I filed a bug. I don't know why the spam filters picked this up but it was not intentional. EDIT: Fixed

Hmm, does it still block it if you paste in a link that 301 redirects to the target? What about a page which at submission time returns a 200 and is changed to redirect to the article later on?

Perhaps you could use a url redirection service, such as tinyurl.com?

The issue is not really about how to share the link, it's about why such a link is blocked

Fb follow links to final destination. It's block this

What about archive.is?