Skip to main content

Facebook strangely withdraws an innocent Gujarati article without stating reasons

Recently, reputed Gujarati journal "Sarthak Jalso", edited by well known writer Urvish Kothari, published an article by Shruti Shah. I posted its pdf version, sent to me by Urvishbhai, on a blog Shruti and I run: https://saankal.blogspot.com/.  
The article is about our seven year long stay in the former Soviet Union during the turbulent period that led to the collapse of the Communist rule -- 1986-93. I thought Gujarati readers would be interested in reading the article, hence I posted a link of the blog post on Facebook.
Prompt came Facebook's reply: the link violates it's community standards, so I should withdraw the article or send my objection. I sent objection, but nothing happened! 
I don't understand which community standards was the Facebook referring to. The link carried snapshots of cover of "Sarthak Jalso" and first page of Shruti's article. 
The cover has photograph of two towering mountain edges very close to each other and a person, visible very small, walking in between. How can any of it be violation of community standards? Which ones, after all? Facebook appears to offer no answer.
The article is in Gujarati, and it's about Shruti as Russian-Gujarati translator in Moscow's Raduga publishing house. Facebook's algorithm wouldn't read and understand a word of it, I presume.
Something appears to be fundamentally wrong with Facebook's automatic algorithm. How can it not allow a totally innocent article's blog link with photos posted? 
Sounds strange, as I also posted the same link on X, formerly Twitter, and it immediately posted it. Despite all the controversy surrounding X, it seems its algorithm is sounder than that of Facebook.
Anyway, click here to read Shruti's article, focusing on her work as translator amidst a collapsing country.

Comments

TRENDING

Did the Sabarmati riverfront make Ahmedabad more vulnerable?

  Currently living in Los Angeles, I find myself missing Ahmedabad . Not because I miss living through the city's recent devastating floods—which, experts say, resulted from a combination of extreme meteorological events and chronic urban infrastructure bottlenecks—but because I am unable to make an on-the-spot assessment of the disaster.

Caste, class, and Patidar agitation: Veteran academic 'unearths' Gujarat’s social history

Recently, I was talking with a veteran Gujarat-based academic who is the author of several books, including "Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature", "Untouchability in Rural India", "Public Health and Urban Development: The Study of Surat Plague", and "Dalit Identity and Politics", apart from many erudite articles and papers in research and popular journals.

DigiLocker's 'mismatch' problem: When technology defies government policy

  DigiLocker has been functioning in rather strange ways, at least in my experience over the past year. For quite some time now, I have been trying to retrieve various documents from the Government of India's official app, but every attempt ends with an inexplicable "mismatch" error. I even lodged a complaint through its official email ID, explaining that I was unable to retrieve or download essential documents such as my PAN card , driving licence, and the registration certificates of my car and scooter. The response has remained the same: the system refuses access on the grounds of a so-called mismatch.