Facebook is now putting piracy websites on a short leash. According to the latest update, users can no longer share links to piracy websites such as Pirate Bay on their timeline and through Messenger as well.
As reported by Torrent Freak while such measures aren’t new on the platform, the social media giant had however intensified its efforts against sharing piracy links across its platform.
It is to be noted that the torrent website ‘The Pirate Bay’ had been previously banned on Facebook. Nonetheless, the current and more recent ban is far-reaching when compared to the previous one.
Nearly a decade ago, Facebook had demanded the torrent website to remove the “share” button on their platform at a turbulent time when The Pirate Bay was in the midst of a high profile copyright infringement case.
As The Pirate Bay wasn’t cooperative, Facebook ended up banning the torrent website’s URLs on its platform.
“The Pirate Bay has not responded and so we have blocked their torrents from being shared on Facebook,” said the company with regards to its proceedings with the torrent website. Eventually, Facebook lifted the ban and allowed users to share the torrent website’s links up until recently.
Over the past few weeks, Facebook had started blocking several pirate websites on its platform as they violate the “community standards.” These bans can be linked to the company’s strong stance on copyright infringement. As a matter of fact, the social media giant is gradually banning several other pirate websites as well. Recently, 1337x.to had also joined the list of banned pirate websites on the social media platform.
As of now, sharing The Pirate Bay’s links on Facebook will lead to an error message that reads, “You can’t share this link. Your post couldn’t be shared, because this link goes against our Community Standards.” Attempts to share The Pirate Bay’s links on the Messenger also attract the aforementioned error message.
Here’s how the recent ban is different from the previous one: During the older ban, Facebook users weren’t allowed to share links to torrent pages only; but now, even the links to the website’s homepage are banned.
