by Scott Buttram, publisher

Commentary

TRUSSVILLE — We had a disturbing incident with Facebook yesterday. And it impacted your ability to receive news that may be important for you.

Scott Buttram, publisher of The Tribune

I’ll say up front that I’m not interested in bashing Facebook, Instagram, X or any other social media platform. To the contrary, I enjoy social media and believe they help provide needed information and entertainment. But when it comes to delivering news, some are sorely lacking and readers should be aware.

At approximately 5:40 p.m. on Monday, The Trussville Tribune posted a story titled ‘Birmingham mayor vacates assistant police chief and deputy police chief positions.’ About 20 minutes later, Facebook notified the Tribune that story had been removed for violating “Community Standards on spam.”

The news article is not spam. It is in no way misleading. It is 100 percent accurate and every source is cited. In fact, the story was reported by multiple Birmingham area media outlets and shared to those outlet’s social media accounts. They do not appear to have been removed by Facebook as our story was.

The Tribune immediately disputed the claim by Facebook. As of 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Facebook had not responded. In a world where newspapers are expected to deliver news in a timely fashion, the lack of a response some 12 hours later is problematic.

Maybe is was a simple mistake. I don’t know because, as stated, Facebook has not responded to our dispute. But I do know it should never have happened in the first place. And I know it would not have happened had the decision maker had even the most elementary understanding of what a local newspaper is and how a local newspaper operates.

The news article in question relates to a press release on Monday from Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin stating that two top level positions in the police department had been vacated. The mayor’s latest personnel moves come as the city has seen an increase in homicides compared to the 2023 pace.

The story was written by former Tribune editor and current 1819 News editor Erica Thomas. The Tribune has a content sharing agreement with the outlet. Thomas is an experienced, award-winning news journalist who was repeatedly recognized for her work by the Alabama Press Association during her years with the Tribune.

The story is also of undeniable interest to the Tribune audience. All nine cities in the Tribune coverage area are part of the Birmingham Metro area. Multiple Tribune cities share city limits with the City of Birmingham. More importantly, east Birmingham residents are among our most loyal readers.

While I respect the right of Facebook/Meta to run their website as they please and implement any rules they desire, it is important for Tribune readers to be aware that any reliance on social media to deliver their local news would be a mistake. We cannot control decisions by social media platforms to censor news articles.

I give Facebook credit for helping grow the Tribune audience, especially in the early days. But much has changed with the social media giant in the last decade.

In 2012, as a deadly tornado took the life of a teenage girl, destroyed over 300 homes in Clay and dozens more in Trussville, the Tribune found in self without access to our website. With almost the entire coverage area plunged into total darkness without electricity, we reported almost exclusively via Facebook for hours.

To this day, Tribune readers share stories of being glued to their phones checking the Tribune Facebook page for updates throughout the night and the following day. They relied heavily on our reporting for help and resources. Facebook access truly made a difference for hundreds of our local residents that tragic night.

Today, a local tornado warning posted on our Facebook page, meaning people have minutes to protect their lives, may not be seen by many readers for days or even a week. That’s baffling to me.

Even today – as Facebook incorrectly labels an important local newspaper story as spam – our Facebook inbox is inundated with spam messages from people claiming to work for Facebook or Meta. Multiple messages every day.

Despite highly detailed algorithms and AI ability, the social media giant seems unable or unwilling to stop the avalanche of spam directed at Facebook pages. But they somehow managed to find and block a legitimate news story.

The best advice I can give readers is to visit trussvilletribune.com on a regular basis to check for the latest news stories or go old school and pick up a copy of the printed newspaper each week. We’ll continue to do our very best to deliver the local news. I hope you’ll do your best find the news that matters to you.

And, while I’m at it, thank you to our readers for your amazing support over the last 15 years. Our growth has been phenomenal because of you and we do what we do because of you.