The Washington Post has collected more than 40 examples of Facebook removing emergency-related posts. It’s occurred during at least 20 small and major fires since June, including the Park Fire, as well as Hurricane Debby in August. While Facebook has misflagged posts as spam during emergencies before, disaster groups and wildfire trackers say that the issue has reached critical mass. In June, they say, something on the social media platform changed, and their content has been disappearing at an alarming rate right when people need it most. In nearly every instance, the platform tells users that they violated the company’s “Community Standards on Spam” due to trying to get likes, follows, shares or views in a “misleading way.” It happens primarily with links, even to official sites from Cal Fire, the U.S. Forest Service, sheriff’s departments and AlertCalifornia, which monitors fires and disasters in real-time.
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