Hungarian Facebook mystery solved!

Disabled Hungarian Facebook accounts are accessible again, Facebook said in an official statement. The social media giant locked out thousands of Hungarian Facebook users this week.

Hvg.hu reported Facebook’s official statement regarding the status of the few thousand Hungarian Facebook accounts. Numerous users in Hungary complained that they could not access their accounts, and famous Hungarian Facebook celebrities began to lose likes by the hundreds, showing signs of a more widespread phenomenon. However, Facebook has refused to comment on the situation: until now. Today, the social media company released a statement in which they explained the situation. 

Disabled accounts are accessible again – says the official statement. 

Or rather, most of the disabled accounts. As explained in the statement, the mass cancellation of accounts was due to an “overactivity” in the company’s censorship system. Facebook’s censorship team, a squad of both artificial intelligence and humans, searches for content that goes against the company’s community guidelines. If they find any, they remove the content and possibly the user who shared it.

Apparently, content worthy of removing was shared by thousands of users. However, the goal of these users was not to support the worrisome content; instead, it was to inform their friends about the danger.

In the end, an internal investigation shed light on the matter, and as such, the vast majority of disabled accounts have been re-enabled. However, there remain some accounts closed down. As to what the content actually was that made the social media giant panic, we do not know. 

Facebook received plenty of criticism regarding its data protection and censorship policies. The company recently also clashed with the Hungarian government. 

Source: hvg.hu