Was #SavetheChildren Banned on Facebook? Hashtag Was Temporarily Censored
Facebook users are noticing that a hashtag with the phrase “Save the Children” (#SavetheChildren) appeared to be banned or censored on Facebook. Although statuses with the hashtag can still be posted, clicking on the hashtag doesn’t reveal any results or, instead, comes with a warning about community safety guidelines. After a couple of hours, it appears the hashtag may be restored.
Facebook Mobile Displayed a Warning that #SavetheChildren Posts Were Hidden to ‘Keep Our Community Safe’
While you can still post using the “Save the Children” hashtag (and Facebook automatically suggests adding a donation button when you do so), the hashtag itself appeared to be banned or censored on Facebook searches. Now it appears to be working again, but it’s not clear if that’s a permanent or temporary change.
Clicking on the hashtag on desktop revealed the following error message: “This Content Isn’t Available. This may be because of a technical error we’re trying to fix, or because the content was removed.”
A different error message popped up if you tried to click on the hashtag on mobile. On mobile, a message appeared that read: “Keeping Our Community Safe. Posts with #SavetheChildren are temporarily hidden here. Some content in those posts goes against our Community Standards.”
At this time, an official reason why the posts were hidden had not been confirmed. Some people said they were reporting disturbing photos and pages that they’d seen to Facebook and tagged them with #SavetheChildren to spread the word and ask others to report the pages too. As a result, the hashtag may have been auto-censored. Here’s one example where the hashtag appeared with a photo claiming Tom Hanks was a pedophile:
Facebook has not yet publicly announced a reason for censoring the hashtag as of the time of publication.
Some commenters told Heavy that they had previously run into issues reporting disturbing Facebook pages or groups involving children. One person told Heavy that they personally had reported a disturbing page to Facebook and were later told that the page didn’t violate Facebook’s standards. Heavy has blurred out the name of the page so as not to advertise it.
The commenter told Heavy about the page they reported: “It’s so sick I can’t even write it. Looked to be a young person being made to do something to an adult 😢. And then I got freaked out that I was even on the link to report it, and jumped out fast.”
They were later told by Facebook, as shown in the screenshot above, that the page didn’t violate Facebook’s standards. Several other people came to Heavy reporting that they too had reported disturbing groups to Facebook that appeared to involve minors, and none of those groups had been removed yet. Heavy has not verified those pages or groups.
News About the Temporary Ban Went Viral on Facebook & Twitter
People are talking about the ban on Twitter too.
Yes it is. I share post from groups like OurRescue and Craig Sawyer and always write #SAVETHECHILDERN Well tonight I got this 👇👇👇 pic.twitter.com/GD4dRMmsEL
— Liz Evans (@LizHawkYYZ) August 6, 2020
#SaveTheChildren has been blocked by Facebook…this is unreal.
— samanthamarika (@samanthamarika1) August 6, 2020
Heavy is reaching out to Facebook for comment.
https://heavy.com/news/2020/08/savethechildren-save-the-children-facebook/