I found that Facebook messenger is silently censoring and blocking certain SMS text messages without even warning it's users.
I was in person with a friend today, and they had some friends in town from Cuba we we're going to meet them and have dinner together. On the way to dinner I discussed with my friend an article I had read about how Fidel Castro's son left a suicide note claiming that Justin Trudeau is his half brother and Fidel Castro's son.
I showed her the article, and she asked that I send it to her so she could forward it to her friends.
I used Facebook messenger to send it to her as an SMS.
(We were together at the time)
I assumed she would get it and we went on with our dinner with her friends from Cuba.
She kept asking me why I didn't send it and I kept saying I did. She didn't get the link, ut she did get other unrelated pictures I had sent in the meantime just not the link... So I again sent the link... Again using messenger to send the SMS.
still she didn't get the second message. So I then used messenger to send it to her Facebook rather than SMS. And it gave me an error saying I could not send the message. And acted like the user had blocked me from sending messages. Which being with her at the time I knew wasn't so.. However if I just said hi.. with no link it would go through. So that made it clear that Facebook was blocking the link. EVEN SILENTLY BLOCKING it on SMS, Which Facebook shouldn't even be able to do if you ask me.
Then the same link I tried as a Facebook comment, and post and both are blocked as well.
Here is the link.
http://whatsupic.com/index/cuba-justin-trudeau-fidel-castros-son/
I find it very disturbing that Facebook can decide which SMS messages to send and even do so silently without telling you the message was blocked. So it would appear that all of your sms messages are ran across Facebook servers to check if they think it's something they approve of you sending before it will send the text message. And all I can say is WHAT THE FUCK FACEBOOK?? Needless to say I set a different app as my sms app, and blocked messenger from permissions to SMS.
I know Facebook is bullshit so spare me the lecture, I have friends that only use messenger for one reason or another so deleting it isn't an option, but I was using the SMS functionality as a convienience so I could have just one app do both. But those days are over with this revelation that apparently Facebook is monitoring SMS messages and even silently blocking them. I wouldn't have known she didn't get my message if I hadn't been with her at the time ..
view the rest of the comments →
Pyra ago
This isn't surprising. They DO monitor messages, that I know for a fact. I work as a dispatcher for a local 911 center. We received a call from one of the Facebook offices saying that they had picked up suicide threats in a person's messages and wanted officers to go check on them. They even had their registered address and where they had logged on last. I very rarely use messenger on Facebook anyways, but this definitely made me question what else they monitor.
Fateswebb ago
Unreal!!!!
So they don't just filter them with a computer they LITERALLY READ THEM REAL TIME or look for specific keywords to read. Crazy
Pyra ago
Yes. No doubt about it
noworldorder ago
They most likely have a list of "fake news" websites that are auto-blocked.
It may also be some sort of spam filter.
You should try testing with some other websites, both MSM and alternative media.
Fateswebb ago
Well yeah they aren't going to filter CNN. And they already announced their strategy on this and have been doing it admittedly on Facebook posts. But they never admitted to doing it on messages, and especially not on SMS Messages.
It is the fake news/spam filter that they use for Facebook posts... But being used on sms messages as well.
But I can tell you I added spaces to the URL to make it not a valid url and they still blocked it so that didn't circumvent the block.