Chose to post a critical comment on a local news site's Facebook page instead of the site itself - got flagged in 2 hours

Last month our town council in Maplewood voted to shut down the public comment period at meetings 10 minutes early. I wanted to call it out. The news site's own comment section requires a real name and phone number to post (which felt sketchy). Facebook let me post under my first name only. But within 2 hours my comment was hidden for "spam" - it was literally one paragraph with no links. Meanwhile the site's own comment section is still up and running with zero of those kind of posts. Has anyone else noticed local news platforms getting stricter than the actual social media sites?

2 comments

2 Comments

wesley1391mo ago

Flip it around for a second - maybe the news site just doesn't want their official comment section overrun with unchecked stuff. Facebook's algorithm works on a totally different logic, and it probably flagged your post because it sensed a hot-button local topic with no previous engagement or history on your account. The site's own system might just let things sit until someone reports them, while Facebook's bot jumps on anything that looks even a little out of the ordinary (like a single paragraph about a town council decision with no personal connections). Plus, if you're using a first name only on Facebook, the algorithm might treat it as lower trust right off the bat. I get the frustration, but these platforms just have different rules for keeping things tidy.

blair_allen1mo ago

Hey @wesley139, you ever just try posting from a burner account with a few friends first to build history?