Facebook prevents sharing of New York Post Black Lives Matter story

Facebook is preventing users from sharing a New York Post story about how a co-founder of Black Lives Matter spent millions of dollars to buy several homes.

Attempts to share the story Friday morning produced a Facebook error message reading, “Your content couldn’t be shared, because this link goes against our Community Standards.”

A Facebook spokesperson told The Hill that the Post story “was removed for violating our privacy and personal information policy.”

However, on Thursday night, New York Times media columnist Ben Smith posted a tweet with a further explanation for the ban.

“Facebook on why it blocked a NY Post article. This all applies to lots of articles on news sites,” Smith tweeted.

The explanation included in Smith’s tweet said Facebook did not allow people to post confidential information and that it would remove private information including information on a person’s residence if it could lead to harm.

Facebook on why it blocked a NY Post article. This all applies to lots of articles on news sites. pic.twitter.com/oEdzX0Hy72

— Ben Smith (@benyt) April 16, 2021

The New York Post did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Hill. 

The Facebook spokesperson did not say when the ban on the Post’s story began. However, the restriction seemed to have been enacted at some point Thursday. 

That evening, Tucker Carlson mentioned it on his show.

“Facebook is now blocking the New York Post, reporting,” Carlson said. “We just tried to share that on Facebook, and we got a message, ‘You can’t share this link because it goes against our community standards.’ Those standards include flacking for every left-wing activist group in America.”

Facebook also did not say if the ban applied just in the United States or if the restrictions were global. 

However, a media newsletter called Inquire shared screenshots from users in Europe Thursday night who were unable to share the story, implying that the ban was indeed global.

This is the second notable instance of Facebook banning a New York Post story. In October, the platform, along with Twitter, restricted sharing of a New York Post story involving a laptop reportedly owned by President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

At that time, Facebook policy communications manager Andy Stone suggested in a tweet that the story contained disinformation.

“While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want [to] be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform,” Stone tweeted.

On Friday, it did not appear that Twitter had placed any restrictions on sharing the more recent New York Post story about Black Lives Matter.