Facebook ‘sorry’ after user told Jerusalem Post article ‘goes against standards’

Facebook has apologised to an online user after she was told in error that a Jerusalem Post article she attempted to share on the platform about the Halle terror attack violated community standards.

The piece, headlined “Keren Hayesod donors save jewish lives in Halle Germany,” and published last week, contains an image of the shul’s damaged door peppered with bullet holes.

It reports that the shul’s door and security system, understood to have stopped the attacker from breaching the building,was donated by the JAFI Security Assistance Fund.

Facebook user Nicole N Zairova, 31, from London, expressed her anger last Friday after a pop up window alerted her that the post “goes against our community standards on dangerous individuals and organisations.”

The message also said: “We have these standards to prevent and disrupt offline harm.”

She wrote: “Dear @Mark Zuckerberg, what sort of Community imposes such ‘standards’ exactly? Perhaps some of us might wish to reconsider whether it is within our standards to continue being part of it.”

A Facebook spokesperson apologised for the error and said the article had been reinstated.

“Our detection systems identified the image in this article as being very similar to the attacker’s livestreamed video, which is banned from Facebook, meaning it was automatically removed,” the spokesperson said.

“We are investing in people and technology to prevent terrorist content appearing on Facebook and we recently partnered with the Metropolitan Police to collect training data to improve our detection systems.”