Facebook users unable to post story about huge Facebook hack on Facebook

An example of the error message users were shown when they tried to share a story published by the Guardian on Friday. An example of the error message users were shown when they tried to share a story published by the Guardian on Friday. Photo: Screenshot Via Facebook Photo: Screenshot Via Facebook Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close Facebook users unable to post story about huge Facebook hack on Facebook 1 / 13 Back to Gallery

On Friday, the Guardian published a story about 50 million Facebook accounts being compromised by a hack that allowed hackers to take over the user's accounts.

But when Facebook users took to Facebook to try to share the story in the early afternoon, a funny thing happened — they were served with error messages, and the posts were blocked.

ALSO: Facebook logs 90 million people out of their accounts after security breach

"Action Blocked: Our security systems have detected that a lot of people are posting the same content, which could mean that it's spam. Please try a different post," the error message read.

Some on Twitter speculated that the issue was more likely a problem with Facebook's spam algorithm than a case of outright censorship, since people were able to post a Washington Post story on the same topic without issue. That being said, the optics were not great for Facebook.

MORE: Why Facebook's policy chief was at the Kavanaugh hearings

Just before 2:30 p.m., a Facebook spokesperson told SFGATE the issue had been resolved, and was in fact a problem with the spam filter.

""Our automated systems incorrectly marked two news articles - one from The Guardian and another from the AP - as spam," the spokesperson said. "We fixed the issue as soon as we were made aware of it, and people should be able to share both articles. We apologize for the inconvenience."

As for the hack, Facebook says it was discovered on Tuesday and patched Thursday, and that all affected users have been notified.

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter