Facebook Intensifies Enforcement of 'Cloaking' That Shows Users Content Violating Policies

Facebook is strengthening efforts to ban "cloaking" that bypasses the company's review processes to show content in violation of community standards and advertising policies, blogged Product Management Director Rob Leathern and Software Engineer Bobbie Chang Wednesday. "Cloaked destination pages, which frequently include diet pills, pornography and muscle building scams, create negative and disruptive experiences." Cloakers create web pages with links that take Facebook reviewers to websites that comply with company policies, but users are taken to malicious or misleading sites. Leathern and Change said Facebook has taken down "thousands of these offenders" through artificial intelligence and expanded human reviews. They said the company will closely collaborate with industry and ban such advertisers and pages.