Facebook has issued an apology to White House Social Media Director Dan Scavino after temporarily blocking his ability to post for several hours on Monday because he ran afoul of its bot detectors.
In an official statement, the social media giant claimed that its algorithm had mistaken Scavino for a robot account after he publicly complained that he was unfairly targeted.
“In order to stop automated bots, we cap the amount of identical, repetitive activity coming from one account in a short period of time, such as @mentioning people,” the tech giant said, adding that these caps can produce unintended collateral damage.
“We’ve been in touch with him and have apologized for the inconvenience.”
Scavino’s blocking also caught the attention of US President Donald Trump who said he would look into accusations of anti-conservative bias on social media platforms.
“There’s discrimination, there’s big discrimination,” Trump said during a joint press conference with visiting Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. “Something’s happening with those groups of folks that are running Facebook, and Google, and Twitter, and I do think we have to get to the bottom of it.”