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Facebook Removes Extratorrent Fan Page

As one of the largest BitTorrent sites on the Internet, Extratorrent.com (ET) thought it would be a good idea to interact with “fans” through Facebook.

As of two days ago the page had more than 140.000 fans, but yesterday Facebook decided to remove it due to copyright violations.

“We have removed or disabled access to the following content that you have posted on Facebook because we received a notice from a third-party that the content infringes their copyright(s),” Facebook wrote.

The site owner is not pleased with the decision, and says Facebook is needlessly censoring the ET community.

“We use Facebook to have a place for ET community to meet, talk, debate, have fun and hang out with each other. Many ET users like to spend their time on their ET Facebook page.”

“We never used FB for the purpose of breaking any rules,” he adds.


Facebook’s email

However, Extratorrent also admits that they posted links to torrent files on Facebook. Some of these torrents pointed to copyrighted material, which explains the violation of Facebook’s terms of service.

The site owner nevertheless hopes to convince Facebook to reinstate the page. If this is not possible a new one will be created.

This post is from the News Bits section of TorrentFreak where we present stories from around the web in a concise summary format. Full TorrentFreak articles can be found here. If you have a tip please let us know. News Bits have their very own RSS feed
  • Decimus

    I guess I don’t blame FaceBook for this.  They shouldn’t be using it to post links or torrents.  If they really wanted to do that, they should get their own forum.

    Yeah, censorship sucks, but it’s not completely “free speech” when it’s on FaceBook.

    • Naomi

      key here, remove whole site for copywrite violations? wtf, should just remove the offending post (if valid and not false dmca mafiaa likes to send, put placeholder in its place like google does “item was removed by rightsholder request/etc for what reason state and from whome, then leave txt there as a placeholder, not just 404

      • Purtear

        Apparently, you don’t know thing about FB terms ..
        If they found any bit of violation , they have the right to remove the whole site
        That’s fair enough :)

        • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

          No, it isn’t. That is like bulldozing a whole house because the one window in it is broken for two seconds.

        • Andrew Lee

           ROFL Nice one! but yeah Facebook should have gave them a warning instead of rolling over.

          Oh shit my damn neighbors kid just hit a baseball through my window. :( I’m doomed DOOMED I tell ya.

          Goodbye cruel world. X-/

      • Decimus

        They only removed a page, they didn’t remove any sites.  And FaceBook has their own rules and their own agenda.  Extratorrent is within its rights to make a new page.  But they shouldn’t be using that page to share torrents.  FaceBook was created as a means to connect college students from around the world, which was later opened to the public.  While it’s great to share files, it’s just not practical to do it on a site with strict rules and a purpose to simply allow people simpler means to communicate.

        People put too much faith in FaceBook, they don’t seem to see that last line on the guidelines that say that they reserve the right to remove a page for any reason, or even no reason at all.  Why would anyone rely on a site that would do this?

        • Danny

          ‘Facebook was created as a means to blast advertising in the faces of the mass sheeple’ you mean.

      • Reality Check

          You are asking Facebook to care about your rights. Seriously? 

         Let me
        tell you about Facebook’s rights. When you are on Facebook, you are on private
        property. This little fun fact lets them do anything they want to or
        with the information you upload or post. They can sell it (they are)
        they can store it (they do) they can hand it over to the government on a
        whim (they have) and they can delete it (as you now see).

          You have virtually no rights on Facebook, period. Don’t like it? STOP USING IT.

  • ylrd

    What do you expect from them? I only use facebook to contact my family and browse some stupid/funny content. If I want porn/downloads/adult humor I know where to go, and I’m pretty damn sure that facebook is not the place.

    • Ethearh

      You don’t use Facebook?  Man, you’re so cool, hip and ahead of the curve. Please start a cult so I can follow your guidance!

      • ylrd

        I never said I didn’t use it, smartass.

      • dontcare4uatall

         Sooo……you’re wanting a different “cult” than the one you’re currently in(FB)?

  • http://twitter.com/TMc51 T. McMahon

    Google+ > facebook

    Too bad more people don’t realize this, instead of sticking with a sinking ship.

    • Naomi

       http://www.stfimages.com/?v=HpxTt.jpg ciabook
      http://www.stfimages.com/?v=e1cCx.jpg spybook
      aka facebook, funded by nsa, used by 5.0 etc

    • Guest

      Google’s just as bad when it comes to privacy and censorship.

      VKontakte > Facebook.

      I’d rather use a Russian social network than Facebook.

      • Guest

        VKontakte’s just as bad when it comes to privacy and censorship.

        • Guest

          Tell that to the millions of pirated music and videos on the website.

          As for privacy, they don’t give it to the FBI and also they have more privacy restrictions than FB/G+. They don’t bend over backwards for the government in the USA.

          As for censorship, source?

    • D*

      oh please people. Diaspora is where it’s at. decentralised and open-source social network =D

  • Blah

    no ones suing anyone yet,

    “Facebook decided to remove it sue to copyright violations.”

    due :)

    ill come it at 9 tomorrow to start as editor

    • http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

      “Come in” you failed step 1 as editor. Lol never correct ernesto if you haven’t corrected yourself :p

    • Grammar level retardation

       At least Ernesto’s would pass a spell check.

    • McCheezits

      This may be slightly off topic to the thread, but whomever designed the site’s theme should add one more thing to the disqus comment section – TinyMCE.

      It would be much easier to write rich text, which the comments section supports, and one would not have to type HTML code if they wanted bold text.

      Just adding my two cents…

      • http://www.twitter.com/echoman74 echoman

        I agree i have 2 wordpress sites myself but disqus comments are a different plugin. it’s a commenting system. I think though within disqus there are codes you can use, But you’d have to find that info out through disqus. Disqus is much better than the default commenting system.

  • Pingback: Facebook Removes Extratorrent Fan Page | OccuWorld

  • Poop

    The group still exists on facebook

  • John Space

    “thought it would be a good idea to interact with “fans” through Facebook.”

    See, that was the root of the problem.

  • Strawbear

    FB are a private site, not a human right, they can do what the hell they want (and often do).

    • http://profiles.google.com/zerianis10 Christopher Kidwell

      Actually, no, they cannot. Contrary to popular belief, the First Amendment and the Constitution are meant to apply just as much to private companies as to the federal government.

      • Mock Congler

        you, sir, are a fool. the first amendment does not compel private companies to host other people’s “free speech” on their servers.

        • Decimus

          Exactly, however the first amendment does allow you to say whatever you want (to a certain point, anyway) on FaceBook without fear of being arrested.

          FaceBook page guidelines state that they reserve the right to remove any page for any reason.  So, they basically say that nobody has any rights, but you’ll likely be able to use the site if you behave yourself.

  • Grey Wun

    access extratorrent and bypass blocks with http://www.mipnow.com

    • Guest

      You keep spamming that link in multiple articles. Stop it FFS.

      • Danny

        Stop replying to his comments. Just flag it and it gets deleted, if you reply it stays here like this!

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/L2FW55JCG4NNVE2CCP5336XJRE Cheese!

    “We use Facebook to have a place for ET community to meet, talk, debate, have fun and hang out with each other. Many ET users like to spend their time on their ET Facebook page.”

    -     –     –     –      -       –      -

    Then take your business elsewhere.
    Why bring traffic to a shitty site like Facefuck anyways?

    • Guest

      “Why bring traffic to a shitty site like Facefuck anyways?”
      because fb has billions users already if you bring it to otherside then it will automatically get less visitors, but having fan page on facebook is ok. but if i was et admin or something like that i would have fan page fb too then *real* discussion on my server forums or site. That way fb would not get any pirate content and it would stay withing terms of fb but you would still get fan page and traffic from fb to your site.

  • JamJulLison

    Piratebay has posted links to some of their torrents on their facebook page and that page is still around.  This is just ridicules. 

  • WithinthisboxliesKnowledge

    sounds like someone like’s to play …”BULLY”… towards free speech…or perhaps there is nothing free anymore??????

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

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