Facebook might be getting set to unveil its mash-up of messaging services, but the company still hasn’t released its grip on links to material it deems “abusive” or “spam,” including links to BitTorrent-friendly websites like The Pirate Bay.
According to Ryan Singel of Wired’s Epicenter blog, a user attempting to Facebook message another user a link to a .torrent file on the site will instead come face-to-face with Facebook’s auto-censor script—”This message contains blocked content that has previously been flagged as abusive or spammy,” it reads in part.
Facebook isn’t going to relax its policy even as it goes to expand its simple messaging service into a complete email, SMS, and instant message hub, to name a few uses. The company also doesn’t intend to give its users any further information on links that could or could not face the blocking tool—Facebook claims that it does so in order to protect intellectual property rights and, in addition, that it’s a completely legal practice.
Given just how long the blocking has successfully survived since its April 2009 debut, it’s safe to say that Facebook has time on its side in this argument. However, potential users of Facebook’s new messaging service are criticizing the company for what amounts to a censored messaging service. By blocking The Pirate Bay, for example, Facebook’s wide net does catch BitTorrents that are perfectly legal to share—both open-source software and public domain material.
According to a message released through a Facebook spokeswoman last year, the blocking initially came up as a result of The Pirate Bay’s refusal to remove “Share on Facebook” links from various pages on its site.
“Facebook respects copyright and our Terms of Service prohibits placement of ‘Share on Facebook’ links on sites that contain ‘any content that is infringing,” said a spokeswoman. “The Pirate Bay has not responded and so we have blocked their torrents from being shared on Facebook.”
Author : David Murphy