Facebook Admits to Blocking Wikileaks’ DNC Email Leak

Facebook’s newsfeed is as we now know curated by people rather than by algorithm, making it more akin to a corporate-owned newsroom than a neutral platform for content.

Now the social platform is being dogged by criticism again for censoring emails discussing shady schemes by Democratic Party officials, which were published by the whistleblowing website Wikileaks. The 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee, which were widely covered by various news outlets, featured discussions in which officials actively sought to undermine Bernie Sanders’ campaign. After users noted that they were unable to share posts regarding the unsavory DNC e-mails on Facebook, Wikileaks took to accusing the company of censorship on Twitter, Mediaite reports.

Facebook acknowledged the issue but characterized it as a mistake, and fixed it shortly thereafter. Some are conjecturing that its news algorithm mistakenly judged the links to be malicious or spam, as Gizmodo notes, though the exact nature of the incident remains ambiguous. The Democratic National Convention is set to commence on Monday and the suspicious timing has prompted further questions about the standards governing Facebook’s news algorithm.

Revelations earlier this year that Facebook’s human curators were directed to suppress conservative content on its trending news feed sent ripples through the blogosphere, though acute observers of the platform may have noticed a recurring themes in trending content and suspected something foul was afoot earlier.