Facebook Apologizes for Labeling White House Social Media Director Dan Scavino a ‘Bot’

Tech giant Facebook has apologized for mistakenly labeling the White House Social Media Director, Dan Scavino Jr., as a “bot,” or automated account, on its platform.

Breitbart News recently reported that Facebook blocked the White House Director of Social Media and Assistant to the President, Dan Scavino Jr., from commenting on Facebook posts on his own Facebook page. Scavino made a post about this issue screenshotting the warning he received from Facebook and stating: “AMAZING. WHY ARE YOU STOPPING ME from replying to comments followers have left me – on my own Facebook Page!!?? People have the right to know. Why are you silencing me??? Please LMK! Thanks.”

At the time, Facebook had no explanation for the issue, now the company has explained why Scavino was facing issues commenting. In a statement from a spokesperson issued shortly after the President himself tweeted about the issue, a Facebook spokesperson stated: “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. These limits can have the unintended consequence of temporarily preventing real people like Dan Scavino from engaging in such activity, but lift in an hour or two, which is what happened in this case.” The company added: “We’ve been in touch with him and have apologized for the inconvenience.”