Why does facebook mark this guardian link as suspicious?
March 25, 2015 4:19 AM   Subscribe

I posted a link on my facebook page to the Guardian piece about David Pocock calling out homophobic slurs in a recent Super15 rugby match. But during posting, facebook complained that the link looked malicious, and asked me to confirm it was safe.

The post appears on my page fine, but when anyone clicks on it they are first taken to a facebook warning page with the following message:
Sorry, there was a problem with this link: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/mar/24/brave-david-pocock-should-be-commended
You can now continue to this website, or go back to the page you were on before.
Remember: Only follow links from sources you trust.

This is pretty annoying, since it clearly suggests users should "Go Back" rather than continuing to the news story.

Am I doing something wrong? Is this just a random facebook quirk? I rarely use facebook, so I'd really appreciate it if anyone could help explain.

Here is the link in question:
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/mar/24/brave-david-pocock-should-be-commended
posted by theyexpectresults to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)
 
I'm going to guess "cock" in the url. A variation on the Scunthorpe problem.
posted by mskyle at 4:28 AM on March 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


I had a similar thing with the University of Sussex.
posted by stellathon at 5:07 AM on March 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


Every single link I click on in Facebook gives me the same message. I've learned to ignore it. I'm not sure if it's an error or something Facebook is doing on purpose -- but I doubt the problem is you or the link.
posted by meese at 5:49 AM on March 25, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yep I'm with meese, I get that error with literally every link I click on from the Facebook app. It's not you, and it's probably not the link.
posted by brainmouse at 8:12 AM on March 25, 2015


Response by poster: Ok, thanks a lot folks. Even if there's nothing I can do about it, it's good to know it happens to others too. Cheers.
posted by theyexpectresults at 5:27 PM on March 25, 2015


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