Facebook 'anti-spam systems' blocked Democrat emails dump

Facebook has said its anti-spam filters were to blame for its website briefly blocking access to internal emails from US Democratic Party committee members published by Wikileaks.

"Anti-spam systems briefly flagged links to these documents as unsafe," Facebook told BBC News.

Earlier, Facebook's chief security officer confirmed the dump of emails had been inaccessible from its website.

Over the weekend, Wikileaks accused Facebook of "censoring" the emails.

Although they had remained accessible from Facebook via a shortened online link.

Wikileaks says 19,000 emails were leaked from the accounts of seven Democratic Party officials.

Some appeared to suggest party insiders had tried to disrupt Bernie Sanders's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Since the emails' dissemination, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who chaired of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), has resigned

Facebook's algorithms have faced scrutiny more than once this year.

In May, for example, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg denied allegations the site was suppressing articles on conservative topics.

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BBC