On a hunch by Craig Thomler that Facebook censors references to the word Twitter, I decided to put my money where my fingers are and type some test updates.
You won’t believe this.
Take a look (in reverse chronological order):
Note how I inserted numbers into the 10 test posts.
When I refreshed the page and clicked to my personal wall of updates, take another look:
The proof is in the screen shots.
Facebook is censoring you. Not just for profanity, but also for the word “Twitter” and even the phrase “Facebook sucks.” If this is legal, it’s a damn shame because I don’t like to be censored when talking to my friends.
UPDATE: As you will see from various comments below, my demo can only be repeated if you rapid-fire so many messages in a given time period. However, as Adriel refers below, there were other people over the course of several hours who witnessed Facebook censoring the word “Twitter” in updates.
About Ari Herzog
Interesting. I saw your tweets earlier this evening and made just one status update similar to yours and it hasn’t been removed. (Though it also has a bunch of comments from my friends, so maybe that’s keeping it from being deleted?)
I can’t say that FB’s new look and feel has been positive.
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May I also point out that this is not a scientifically strenuous test at all. If you wanted it to be accurate, you should have set up more experiments, on multiple accounts, with different status updates. If for you made a string of statuses that read “Facebook is awesome! I love Facebook! [1-10]” and THEY got deleted it, it would disprove your notion of censorship right away, as Facebook would have no reason to censor positive feedback for the site. My guess is that they would be deleted, as Facebook automatically deletes multiple status updates that are within a certain number of seconds from each other.
Good try though.
Hi Ari – I tested it with one status update when I saw your tweet about it and like Jim, mine wasn’t removed either. Mine has comments on it too.
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Maybe it’s a smart censor?
Facebook? Doing dumb things to try and prevent abuse? >.>
Obviously the designers haven’t been clued into last century design: Cooldowns. Cooldowns are a period of time in which you can’t do something after doing this same thing. So if you post, and there’s a cooldown of 2 minutes, you can’t post for 2 minutes.
I mean really… They’ve been “censoring” as long as I can remember. You can’t have your name unless it’s in their book of names… Which is a pretty bad book. Name censorship is impossible. Good lord what made them think that was a good idea? Names are created and lost constantly. You can make them up!
I’ve tried to deal with them a couple of times, but frankly they piss me off too frequently. If it’s not one thing, it’s another!
Eck… You’ll never catch me on Facebook as long as they pull stuff like this. I don’t have the patience or interest to deal with them.
From what i noticed, each of ur posts were one directly after the other (like within several seconds). In my experience FB is smart in their posting of your status. In the past when i have typed a status and realized i typed something wrong or didnt actually want it and i changed it right away… the original version disappears completely. If you want to test this properly each post you make containing “twitter” should be at least 5-10 min apart from each other.
I’ve just done some tests of my own, and the only updates that have disappeared were ones that said ‘The following updates are tests.’
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Twitter Comment
Facebook censors updates with “Twitter ” in – treated same as swear word! [link to post] #facebookdeletesTwitter
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Perhaps I am not recreating your experiment in the same way (by “personal wall” you just mean my “wall,” correct?). But I have a few updates mentioning Twitter, plus a link to a news article — none are being censored.
– Matt
Twitter Comment
Proof That Facebook is Censoring You [link to post]
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Ari – FYI, I tried a couple tests, no deletions
Ed Bennett´s last blog post..HSNL Update #6 March 3, 2009
Ari, FB regularly deletes my updates no matter the comment when made that close in succession – only the last one sticks. Tried it on my FB and it seems to be just fine. As do curse words…
Hmm. So, it’s succession? Thinking your a spammer? That could explain it… Not right, but could explain it.
Yes, I tried ti too. It deletes comments made within about a minute of each other. Obviously spam protection. Guess you’d better change your post…
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This may not be spam protection. I’ve known about it for a long time; it’s handy for making corrections and fixing typos. FB’s logic, presumably, is that any update soon after a previous one is meant to overwrite it.
But you’ll need a test with pauses or comments to determine if there’s really a “Twitter effect” on Facebook.
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Twitter Comment
is this Proof That Facebook is Censoring You [link to post] ??
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I think all it proves is FB doesn’t post every single status update you make if there is not much time between them..
If you write a status update and make a spelling error, so you go in a few seconds later and correct it, it only shows the final update.
I guess it’s because if you’re not leaving enough time between updates to actually get a blank status update box again, then it will accept what you write as a correction to the original status.
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…as if preventing someone from posting an update numerous times in a short time span is any better. What if a plane just crashed, and I’m updating several times a minute? If they all appear on Twitter and not on Facebook, what does that tell you? What does that mean to you if you’re watching on Facebook?
I’m disappointed: I was actually hoping FB deleted my Twitter reference so I could hate it even more.
Oh well, I’ll keep an eye on it. That is whack how that happened to you. Maybe @finkd is stalking you.
Phil
Phil Baumann´s last blog post..Daily Diigo Discoveries 03/11/2009
sensationalist post. if you quickly update your status it removes the previous one (think typos). censor yourself.
Actually, I posted a status of “Twitter is lame, it’s Facebook’s status updates without the rest of Facebook” so they don’t filter the word twitter.
Twitter Comment
Proof That Facebook is Censoring You?
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The deletion of succession makes sense, rather than singling out the Twitter service and censoring it out. Facebook has a twitter account, which I imagine they would delete if they wanted to weed Twitter out of their site. They would probably delete the Twitter application(s) too.
I agree with you, Ari, that the deletion of rapid updates is wrong. I see it as a dev team that is trying to prevent spam in all the wrong ways.
Geoff Girardin´s last blog post..How Do You Explain Twitter?
This was not an issue of quick posts in succession, except maybe in Ari’s demo. It happened to many people over the course of a few hours, totally unrelated to succession of updates (mine were three hours apart – see @craigthomler, @kateedwards)), until Facebook changed it as word spread through Twitter. Who is behind the curtain over there?
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I was wondering why some of my tweets didn´t make it to FB.
Mike Dammann´s last blog post..Appeal says juror sent ‘tweets’ during $12.6M case
Facebook censors updates with “Twitter ”
If they think that is the way, are far away of they must do.
We are not in China, we want a networks were we can talk without any censors, about twitter or we want any time, and if they think in other way, is easy, we’ll change to other network.
Repeat the experiment but give a little more time between updates. You’ll see nothing happens. This post can become a FUD.
Dany Saadia, I have probed waiting a lot of time, but some updates never appear, and this only happens when there are some words: twitter, followers…
Is true that this don’t happen not all the times, only sometimes, but if only one time is true, is terrible.
First thing I did yesterday when I saw the new look was to post about it’s ripping off of Twitter.
Still there – maybe they realized I took snapshots of them and posted to TwitPic?
Either way, Facebook continues to go the same slippery slope that MySpace did and look where they are now.
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I had a status for a day or so about how my cat now has a Twitter account and nothing happened.
Stacy Lukas´s last blog post..Why I’m not playing #FollowFriday anymore
Twitter Comment
I can’t believe this is really happening:
[link to post]
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Twitter Comment
I can’t believe this is really happening: [link to post]
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Twitter Comment
Proof That Facebook is Censoring You — AriWriter [link to post]
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Twitter Comment
Is Facebook censoring posts? [link to post]
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Yeah, mine got through, mentioning the evil Facebook censoring Twitter. Unfortunately, people will see the title, may read the original article, but won’t go further to realize that this is an erroneous conclusion. The poster needs to retract, IMO.
Twitter Comment
Hmm… Proof That Facebook is Censoring You [link to post]
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I don’t think Facebook is censoring you. I just tried this myself and found that it didn’t post random updates in between the twitter post tests. I think what is happening is that when you post an update, Facebook waits a certain amount of time before actually posting it to the timeline and their servers so that you get a chance to correct it (if you need to). So basically if you post something about “twitter” and leave it as that for a while, it will show up and will not be censored.
Twitter Comment
Is Facebook censoring? I’ve experienced it. [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
I wouldn’t be surprised if they were censoring things, but I have had the same thing where if I post one update, then another within a minute or two, only the final update posts. The others disappear. I always thought it was just in case you made a mistake, people wouldn’t see the duplicate content in their news feeds.
Seems funny that they would censor Twitter, considering there is that plugin now that lets you use selective Twitter updates as Facebook updates with the #fb at the end.
~ Kristi
Kikolani´s last blog post..Fetching Friday – Web 2.0 At the Bookstore, Twitter Resources
FriendFeed Comment
Proof… [link to post]
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FriendFeed Comment
Proof That Facebook is Censoring You – via Louis [link to post]
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Twitter Comment
Retweeting @dobata: Proof That Facebook is Censoring You [link to post]
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Twitter Comment
Is Facebook censoring its users? [link to post]
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Twitter Comment
Proof That Facebook is Censoring You | AriWriter: [link to post]
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Twitter Comment
Not sure I believe this. Facebook censors the word “Twitter”? [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
Facebook censoring Twitter – Believe it or not?: [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
But.
Anytime you make a bunch of rapid-fire updates on any topic the same thing happens. It’s because if you update that frequently the FB algorithm is set to think that you’re correcting spelling or typos or whatever and it only keeps the most recent update.
I’m not saying FB *isn’t* censoring references to Twitter. But this particular test doesn’t prove it. You could do the same thing with just numbers and the same thing would happen, unless you spaced them just the right amount apart.
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Twitter Comment
Facebook censors status updates with “Twitter” in them [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
I’m surprised they would censor Twitter. I know people may give them negative feedback and approving Twitter, but if nothing else it’s a great way to do research to see what exactly users are saying. If enough people noticed them removing content like that, then there will be bigger complaints.
I’ve run into this several times. I was disappointed.
Twitter Comment
Amazing, FB really is pulling posts with the word twitter in them. Go try it. RT Facebook is censoring you: [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Twitter Comment
@hitekelvis [link to post] crazy
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Twitter Comment
@economist i’m ok with that. facebook sucks. & they know they suck too. check this out: [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
Liked this post + experiment, and glad i found your blog, lots of interesting reads, Sholem Aleykhem
Twitter Comment
@lukelucas this is what i saw last week or so [link to post]
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Twitter Comment
Proof That Facebook is Censoring You … [link to post] – by @AriHerzog
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Dude, sucky as facebook may be you can ask for your money back and go somewhere else. It is their site to edit/censor/whatever. But thanks for shining another light on them. As much as I like to connect with people on FB there is something sinister with it.
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Not true. Use twitter, swear words and say facebook sucks all the time, never ever censored. It just identified you as a spammer. Why are insignificant people always so quick to jump to the paranoid conclusion that anyone cares about their meaningless little lives? Facebook cares only about money. You seemed like a spammer, in economic competition perhaps, that’s all.
Saw you’re article, did some tests of my own. Twitter is not censored. Its possible that there’s an anti-double post mechanism that deleted your comments. But thats too hard for you to figure out. Go on with conspiracy about Facebook censorship.
it wont let me share a link for a torrent site. or make it my status.