HACKER Q&A
📣 jrs235

Can anyone help me understand why Facebook is blocking this website?


There's an organization that assists soldiers returning to civilian life that has a Facebook page. They list their website address on their FB page but FB blocks taking users through to the website. FB claims the site violates community standards. The organization is aware of the issue and says they have tried contacting FB to get clarification on the issue and try to remedy it several times over the past few years. They have never gotten a response.

We can argue and rage about "how awful" the US military is, but that doesn't seem productive. Healing and restoring soldiers mental health that have gone through some of the questionable and traumatic experiences they've had seems like a worthy and noble cause.

I'm honestly asking for anyone's insight into what standard is being violated (it seems to me that some AI has flagged the site incorrectly in regards to suicide) and or how one can get better answers from FB.

Sincerely and thank you.

P.S. The website is https://operationrestoredwarrior.org/


  👤 Beltalowda Accepted Answer ✓
I don't think they're deliberately targetting operationrestoredwarrior.org; something similar also came up recently with publiccode.eu being blocked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31189377

There are probably many more innocent sites like that.


👤 qiskit
My guess is FB, be overly cautious, probably had their algorithm/filters allow false positives but not false negatives. Or at least minimize false negatives as much as possible. Unless there are other issues, I'm sure if you somehow got in touch with them, they will allow the site. Or just don't use facebook if at all possible.

👤 kurupt213
Apparently it’s pretty easy to get unblocked by meta

https://nypost.com/2022/05/19/onlyfans-star-claims-she-had-s...


👤 jrs235
FYI, I came across the organization mentioned above while looking into organizations for combat veterans after reading this sad story from yesterday: https://www.yahoo.com/news/navy-seal-veteran-mental-health-s...

👤 tamaharbor
Because Facebook sucks.