Facebook started marking some posts linking to information and articles about the coronavirus and COVID-19 as spam. The issue was due to a “bug in an anti-spam system,” according to Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of integrity.
Commenting on the matter after a fix had been issued, Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president for integrity, tweeted: “We’ve restored all the posts that were incorrectly removed, which included posts on all topics — not just those related to COVID-19.”
Rosen said the error had been caused by a problem “with an automated system that removes links to abusive websites, but incorrectly removed a lot of other posts too.”
With COVID-19 cases continuing to rise, the hiccup comes at a critical time for social media companies as they try to promote legitimate news sources over misinformation.
