Facebook blames technical glitch for blocked accounts during protests in Romania

Facebook has given a short response to why dozens of Romanians had their accounts or posts temporarily blocked after posting or sharing comments related to the anti-government protests organized last Sunday. "A number of pages were temporarily blocked due to an error in our automated systems. As soon as this was brought to our attention we disabled those blocks. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by these pages being unavailable for a few hours,” Facebook representatives said. Dozens of Romanians complained this week that they were no longer able to use or share ideas on their Facebook pages after posting or distributing comments related to the street protests organized in Romania last Sunday, November 26. Most of them said they were informed that their posts were labeled as “spam suspect” or that they apparently broke the community’s standards” by “incorrectly using” some instruments available on the social network. Local bloggers, journalists, Facebook influencers and even 101-year-old Romanian philosopher Mihai Sora encountered this problem. Over 20,000 people took to the streets in Bucharest last Sunday to protest against the controversial changes to the justice laws, which are currently debated in the Parliament, and the Government’s recent fiscal changes. Thousands others also protested in other Romanian cities, including Sibiu, Cluj-Napoca, Brasov, Iasi, and Constanta. Romania has seen many street protests this year, most of them against the Government and the ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD). Most of these protests were organized on Facebook, where the people gathered to plan the manifestations and express their discontent. Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com