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Meta (Facebook) Begins Blocking Posts Linking to DistroWatch
Apparently Meta, aka Facebook, is now blocking links to DistroWatch [distrowatch.com]. The DistroWatch team makes the following announcement in issue 1106 from 27 January 2025 of the DistroWatch weekly newsletter DistroWatch Weekly [distrowatch.com]:
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 [merriam-webster.com]. 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 [cambridge.org].
- <sarcasm>It's almost like the subject is taboo or something</sarcasm>.
Thus the discussion is steered back to the allowed subjects and viewpoints [washingtonpost.com] and away from Linux, GNU, or above all the F-word [gnu.org]. 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.
