(Reuters) - US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he will look into Facebook’s decision to block public comments by White House social media director Dan Scavino.
Scavino posted a screen shot late on Monday of a message from Facebook saying he was temporarily blocked from making public comments because some of his comments had been reported as spam.
Facebook said the issue was an “unintended consequence” of the platform’s policy on scam, adding, it has been in touch with Scavino and has apologized to him.
Explaining the error, Facebook said it caps the amount of identical, repetitive activity coming from one account in a short period of time as to stop automated bots.
“These limits can have the unintended consequence of temporarily preventing real people like Dan Scavino from engaging in such activity, but lift in an hour or two, which is what happened in this case,” a Facebook spokesperson said.
“Dear Facebook—AMAZING. WHY ARE YOU STOPPING ME from replying to comments followers have left me - on my own Facebook Page!!?? People have the right to know. Why are you silencing me??? Please LMK!” Scavino said in his post earlier.
Trump pounced on the issue. “I will be looking into this!” Trump said in a Twitter post.
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Facebook said the issue is “content-agnostic and is solely about addressing potentially scammy repetitive behavior.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump accused social media platforms Facebook, YouTube and Twitter of favoring his Democratic opponents over him and his fellow Republicans. Alphabet Inc’s Google owns YouTube.
Twitter declined to comment while Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump vetoes measure to end his emergency declaration on border wall
Earlier,
Trump issued the first veto of his presidency to block a measure passed by Democrats and Republicans in Congress that would terminate his emergency declaration for a wall on the US border with Mexico.
The veto, made necessary after a strong and unusual rebuke from members of Trump’s Republican party, capped a week that left Trump politically wounded, at least temporarily, as immigration and his signature promise of a wall become a flashpoint again in the 2020 presidential campaign.
Congress is unlikely to muster the votes to override Trump’s veto, a fact that left White House officials confident despite disappointment that it passed the Republican-controlled Senate at all.
The bipartisan vote on Thursday was a slap at US president for his decision to circumvent Congress and take money already designated for other programs to pay for a barrier on the southern border.
