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posted by hubie on Wednesday January 29, @06:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the hopefully-reversed-by-the-time-this-story-posts dept.

Facebook's Internal Policy Makers Decided That Linux is Malware

https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20250127#sitenews

Facebook ban

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.

We've been hearing all week from readers who say they can no longer post about Linux on Facebook or share links to DistroWatch. Some people have reported their accounts have been locked or limited for posting about Linux.

The sad irony here is that Facebook runs much of its infrastructure on Linux and often posts job ads looking for Linux developers.

Unfortunately, there isn't anything we can do about this, apart from advising people to get their Linux-related information from sources other than Facebook. I've tried to appeal the ban and was told the next day that Linux-related material is staying on the cybersecurity filter. My Facebook account was also locked for my efforts.

We went through a similar experience when Twitter changed its name to X - suddenly accounts which had been re-posting news from our RSS feeds were no longer able to share links. This sort of censorship is an unpleasant side-effect of centralized communication platforms such as X, Facebook, Google+, and so on.

In an effort to continue to make it possible for people to talk about Linux (and DistroWatch), as well as share their views and links, we are providing two options. We have RSS news feeds which get updates whenever we post new announcements, stories, and our weekly newsletter. We also now have a Mastodon account where I will start to post updates - at least for new distributions and notice of our weekly newsletter. Over time we may also add news stories and updates about releases. Links for the feeds and the Mastodon account can be found on our contact page.

Meta (Facebook) Begins Blocking Posts Linking to DistroWatch

Apparently Meta, aka Facebook, is now blocking links to DistroWatch. The DistroWatch team makes the following announcement in issue 1106 from 27 January 2025 of the DistroWatch weekly newsletter DistroWatch Weekly:

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.

We've been hearing all week from readers who say they can no longer post about Linux on Facebook or share links to DistroWatch. Some people have reported their accounts have been locked or limited for posting about Linux.

The sad irony here is that Facebook runs much of its infrastructure on Linux and often posts job ads looking for Linux developers. [...]

This is unfortunate. There are fewer and fewer sites remaining where GNU/Linux can be discussed without restrictions, especially in regards to the F-word. Already on YouTube, Bytedance's Tiktok, the orange site, the red site, and to a certain extent the green site, mention of either will have negative repercussions. YouTube consistently demonetizes videos with the string "Linux" the title. The orange site, owned by anti-FOSS Condé Nast, has long since fired many of its "subredditors" and has been deleting comments and closing accounts if one strays too far off the reservation and mentions either Linux or other topics too close to the F-word.

<sarcasm>It's almost like the subject is taboo or something</sarcasm>.

Thus the discussion is steered back to the allowed subjects and viewpoints and away from Linux, GNU, or above all the F-word. Linux is not the only topic those sites censor, but since too many pretend that open discourse is possible in social control media, the necessary discussions about mass manipulation of public opinion and censorship can't even begin to happen.


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  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Frosty Piss on Wednesday January 29, @06:25PM (1 child)

    by Frosty Piss (4971) on Wednesday January 29, @06:25PM (#1390933)

    I've just posted about this very story on my "timeline" including links to this story on Soylent, as well as DistroWatch, no problems at all. Likewise all my Linux groups are functioning as expected. Maybe Facebook banned the DistroWatch user for some reason, but everything is peachy for me.

    Also, i seriously doubt that there is no Linux running on the back-end of Facebook...

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Samantha Wright on Wednesday January 29, @07:38PM

      by Samantha Wright (4062) on Wednesday January 29, @07:38PM (#1390943)

      This was discussed on YCombinator HackerNews [ycombinator.com] a few days ago. There seems to be some evidence that, three years ago, a DistroWatch article linked to a tarball that got a false positive from Facebook's antivirus. Ever since, some DistroWatch articles have gotten flagged. Possibly some clueless jobsworths exacerbated the issue when they tried to appeal it.

      There is no evidence that this reflects Facebook's actual corporate policy; it's just an absurd mishap.

      Those wacky oligarchs, arbitrarily and callously smiting peasants, am I right folks? Hahaha. Ha. Ha...

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday January 29, @06:32PM (3 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday January 29, @06:32PM (#1390934) Journal

    One of my employers used this nannyware firewall to block pr0n. I was using libpng for work, to store image data. Because PNG is associated with images, one day they evidently decided it was also associated with pr0n and blocked the site. Took only a few minutes to notify the network admin and for him to put in an exception. Maybe I should be thankful I wasn't written up for trying to view NSFW content?

    So when is Windows going to be tagged as malware?

    • (Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday January 29, @06:51PM (1 child)

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 29, @06:51PM (#1390937)
      Heh. One time I had a content filter at work block a search for raspberries. I never did find out what triggered that, nor did my boss which is why the filter was turned off that day.
      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday January 29, @07:03PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday January 29, @07:03PM (#1390939)

      I was hired through acquisition, started off by working from home mostly with a group 1200 miles away. I used VNC a lot to get things done - Windows remote desktop wasn't an option in the product which is Linux based.

      After about 6 months my local office finally got me a desk, and I started coming in to work. Once inside the company network I learned that VNC websites are blocked as "dangerous" by the network malware filter. Oh well, too bad, my colleagues are still 1200 miles away and I need VNC to have any hope of accomplishing my part of this project that a local team of 15 people is working on. So, I bring in what I need on USB stick and continue - with port numbers altered to avoid any silly simple filters that might be applied company wide.

      About 3 months after that, a cluster of IT mucky mucks from corporate appear hovering outside my cube. They "understand you have been using VNC, could you explain what you are using it for?" I show them how I connect with the remote worksite, how it works on my company laptop and the product, how it's pretty much essential to making progress. They thank me for my time and disappear.

      That was over 10 years ago. VNC is still on the list of "dangerous websites" that are blocked in the corporate network, but we also use VNC on the new product line and dozens of my colleagues at the local campus use it on a regular basis. We also do the occasional screen share session with our new colleagues in India and China.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday January 29, @07:33PM (6 children)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane (4757) on Wednesday January 29, @07:33PM (#1390942)

    thinks Facebook is malware.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Undefined on Wednesday January 29, @08:14PM (3 children)

      by Undefined (50365) on Wednesday January 29, @08:14PM (#1390948)

      Funny how everybody outside Facebook — knows Facebook is malware.

      Minor edit.

      • (Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday January 30, @01:10PM

        by driverless (4770) on Thursday January 30, @01:10PM (#1390989)

        there isn't anything we can do about this, apart from advising people to get their Linux-related information from sources other than Facebook

        ITYM:

        there isn't anything we can do about this, apart from advising people to get their information from sources other than Facebook

        There, FTFY.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Thursday January 30, @02:51PM (1 child)

        by Freeman (732) on Thursday January 30, @02:51PM (#1390995) Journal

        Facebook is the only place I've visited that I got one of those "drive-by pop-up things that, if clicked would have screwed the computer royally".

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Friday January 31, @01:26AM

          by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 31, @01:26AM (#1391038)
          Lots of "sponsored" pages on Facebook link to obvious malware traps. Like a fake system dialogue saying I need to install some update. Behind the dialogue is an out-of-focus-but-definitely-porn enticement to resolve whatever it is they want me to install. Hilariously, though, porn isn't what they're pitching. The click-bait headline is usually something like "top 30 stories Redditors share about rotten HOAs." I'm having trouble imagining they're getting anybody to click through with such a massive topic change. "I wanted text to read, not boobs. I'm browsing at work, here!!"

          Anyway, I've reported a zillion of those and every single time FB told me the ad isn't violating their terms. I got pissed off about this once and screencapped one of the malicious pages to share on FB to warn my buddies and... remember when I mentioned the out-of-focus porn? Yeah, FB's automatic "dont upload porn" service caught it and rejected it. So... they COULD auto-detect this shit, but... nahhh they're paying customers and I'm not.
          --
          🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
    • (Score: 4, Funny) by acid andy on Wednesday January 29, @09:35PM (1 child)

      by acid andy (1683) on Wednesday January 29, @09:35PM (#1390958) Homepage Journal

      What about all the ones who denounce Farcebook yet cannot get enough of Instasham and WhatsCrap?

      --
      Welcome to Edgeways. Words should apply in advance as spaces are highly limite—
      • (Score: 4, Touché) by Chromium_One on Thursday January 30, @11:24AM

        by Chromium_One (4574) on Thursday January 30, @11:24AM (#1390985)

        Can't protect the stupids from themselves, if they wanna take randos posting on cesspits seriously, that's their fault not yours (though it may at times be everyone's problem).
        (hint: consider carefully before considering me too seriously ; - )

        --
        When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29, @08:50PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 29, @08:50PM (#1390952)

    When we get Greenland, they will be taken off the terrorist watch list.

    Resistance is futlie

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 30, @04:30PM (1 child)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 30, @04:30PM (#1391004) Journal

      There is going to be several wars. Canada. Greenland. Panama. Who is going to get the "honor" of being the 51st US state ahead of the others which will be the 52nd and 53rd state?

      --
      Satin worshipers are obsessed with high thread counts because they have so many daemons.
      • (Score: 1) by Chromium_One on Thursday January 30, @05:35PM

        by Chromium_One (4574) on Thursday January 30, @05:35PM (#1391015)

        The fifty-first state should be Puerto Rico, which would be doing right by the residents having asked for it over and over again. Won't happen soon, especially with the current administration who thinks they're too libby-lib. Similar would hold for Greenland, if the talk of acquiring it wasn't just stupid posturing. Not paid enough attention to Panama to say much other than it's a reasonable to be concerned the current administration might be serious about acquiring that territory around the canal at least.

        --
        When you live in a sick society, everything you do is wrong.
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Mojibake Tengu on Wednesday January 29, @08:59PM

    by Mojibake Tengu (8598) on Wednesday January 29, @08:59PM (#1390955) Journal

    This kind of cultural attack against DistroWatch is not new. Many of us still remember the fate of FreshMeat.

    The reason behind this happening repeatedly is much deeper than mere funny technical taboo incidents: steady stream of information about how FOSS is evolving cultivates awareness of professional public about alternative technology.

    It's classic cyberpunk paradigm street versus corporate conflict. In current epoch, loosing corporates' grip on IT caste scares the social operators the most. Ignorance is a bliss. Suppression and elimination of such streams is inevitable part of their strategy. It's all about controlling minds, not about controlling software.

    --
    Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by srobert on Thursday January 30, @02:14AM (1 child)

    by srobert (4803) on Thursday January 30, @02:14AM (#1390972)

    I can't test this. I've never had a Facebook account. I also don't have a Twitter (or whatever you want to call it these days) account. Never saw any reason to have either of these. Am I missing anything? It's not surprising that people associate Linux with malware, hacking, and all sorts of sinister things. They're conditioned to that. I work in a Windows environment at my job. One day someone from IT said that Microsoft's tools were very good as evidenced by the fact that they had made so much money from them. I laughed out loud because I thought she was joking. Everyone looked at me like I had farted in church. I'm glad I don't have to work with Windows on my own PC's and laptops. I'm glad that here on SoylentNews we can discuss Linux, BSD, politics, religion, and Freedom.

    • (Score: 2) by Tork on Friday January 31, @01:39AM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 31, @01:39AM (#1391041)
      To be fair: We do live in a world where we expect to get paid for our work. From that perspective it's hard to picture OSS projects getting the equivalent of "talented human hours" as something developed by notable software companies. It's even difficult to educate people, well known apps like Chrome that are tempting to use as an example of OSS success would be undermined by how well known it is that it's Google's browser and are continuing to invest a lot in it.

      Sadly I don't have a good suggestion on how to get past that mindset. Maybe a "like the pros use" approach would be a more productive spin to put on it for a layman.
      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
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