this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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Facebook flags Linux topics as 'cybersecurity threats' — posts and users being blocked (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 2 days ago by schizoidman@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/18210719

Archived

Facebook is banning posts that mention various Linux-related topics, sites, or groups. Some users may also see their accounts locked or limited when posting Linux topics. Major open-source operating system news, reviews, and discussion site DistroWatch is at the center of the controversy, as it seems to be the first to have noticed that Facebook's Community Standards had blackballed it.

[...]

DistroWatch says that the Facebook ban took effect on January 19. Readers have reported difficulty posting links to the site on this social media platform. Moreover, some have told DistroWatch that their Facebook accounts have been locked or limited after sharing posts mentioning Linux topics.

If you're wondering if there might be something specific to DistroWatch.com, something on the site that the owners/operators perhaps don't even know about, for example, then it seems pretty safe to rule out such a possibility. Reports show that "multiple groups associated with Linux and Linux discussions have either been shut down or had many of their posts removed." However, we tested a few other Facebook posts with mentions of Linux, and they didn't get blocked immediately.

[...]

Addition to include the DistroWatch link: https://distrowatch.com/weekly-mobile.php?issue=20250127#sitenews

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[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I don't think it was Microsoft, in the past few years they've been being a little chill towards Linux.

As for being an attack, even if they wanted to, they couldn't get rid of Linux. Even the US government can't tell people to stop using it. I mean, they can tell people to stop, but there's no practical way for them to enforce such a law. Most distros out there also distribute via torrent, so even if you took down the websites for all the distros, you couldn't stop the distribution of the ISOs. Not to mention, if they outlawed or restricted Linux, I can't think of anything that would absolutely make the Linux users become very rebellious. Imagine the majority of the hackers, white, gray, and black hat, all of a sudden becoming very angry with the US government. It would be absolute chaos.

Not to mention, there are corporations like Valve and Ubuntu that have invested millions into Linux. I don't believe for a second they would just lay down and not fight the government outlawing something that has become very lucrative for them.

[–] reksas@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 days ago

yeah, i hope i'm just overthinking. Its just that linux is basically only true freedom we have what comes to operating systems. Maybe they just want to keep people who dont know that much about computers away from linux. Though that should be opposed just as well.