In early March 2025, social media users began to see gray Or black The boxes appear on Facebook when they try to leave a comment.
Publications Reddit And Facebook asked for an increasingly alarm or alarm on the problem. Online users have debated rectangles; While some said it was just a bug Or issueOthers insisted that this indicated that Facebook was monitoring Or censorship Comments. “All you have to do is type the word” Trump “… and it seems”, “a Facebook commentator said. “It’s deliberate, not a problem.”
(Facebook)
SNOPES readers also asked whether the transparent boxes meant that people were “followed or censored”, and a reader sent an overview generated by artificial intelligence claiming that the “gray filter” indicates that the post is reported to “potentially violate their community standards”.
When writing these lines, gray or black boxes – depending on whether the user’s device is in light or dark mode – sometimes appear when you try to leave a comment using a device Run iOSApple mobile operating system; It is not clear if this problem appeared on Android devices.
However, there is no evidence that these boxes appear because Facebook signals, selects or censors the comments, and there is also no evidence that this is part of Facebook’s efforts to train AI on user publications and comments. In a statement sent by email, Tracy Clayton, spokesperson for the Facebook parent company, Meta, said that the gray boxes were “the result of a bug in a Facebook version for iOS which was introduced on March 1.”
“A fix has been submitted to the App Store and is expected to be released in the coming days,” said Clayton. “No meaning on how it happens widely.”
It is possible that the gray or black rectangles represent a problem with the Facebook marking system, because it seems to appear when Facebook thinks that the user tries to mark someone, even if it is not the case. The social media platform uses technology for Apply your rules And public comments To train her AI model, Meta Ai, but nothing indicates that the boxes have anything to do with these practices.
Despite the complaints differently, the attempt to comment “Trump” did not lead to a gray rectangle – at least using an iPhone 15 performing the most recent version of iOS at the time of writing this article – any more than the writing of the “Democratic Party” or the “Republican Party”. This suggests that the Facebook Gray Box problem is not because the company is trying to censor or detect political comments.
The writing “Trump”, “Democratic Party” and “Republican Party” has not brought about gray boxes. (Facebook / Snopes Illustration)
However, “Donald” typing has resulted in a gray box; The writing of “Jane Doe” also as an example of a reserved space name. The box also appears directly above the field of comments, exactly where the taggage function generally appears when Facebook thinks that a user tries to mark another user, generally a Facebook friend (the journalist in this story has Facebook friends with the names “Donald” and “Jane” but not “Trump”). When writing a commentary, in any case where the problem occurred, the tag functionality appeared first. This indicates that the gray rectangle can be a problem with the Facebook marking system, as suggested by some users. The box appeared, without fault, when using the @ function to mark any Facebook account – not just Facebook friends.
The writing “Donald” and “Jane Doe” resulted in gray rectangles; The same goes to invoke the tag function using a “@” then add a space. (Facebook / Snopes Illustration)
In addition, it is relatively simple to make the box disappear: switch to emoji or gif keyboard and the rectangle disappears. This suggests that it has nothing to do with surveillance and is probably a problem, because there is no reason to stop monitoring a user after going to another keyboard.
The transition to a GIF keyboard makes the gray box disappear on Facebook. (Facebook / Snopes Illustration)
A commentator Reddit said The gray rectangle is not specific to the marking of people. However, it is possible that users do not realize that Facebook thinks that they are trying to tag someone, because the user can write a word like “Gray”, for example, by offering Facebook to mark friends of a user with names like “Grayson”. Users can also have Facebook friends with first or family names starting with the same letters as “Trump” or other words related to politics, which potentially causes the problem.
Trying to mark “Snopes.com” led to a gray box. (Facebook / Snopes Illustration)
The “gray” writing leads to the problem if the user has a friend with “Gray” in his name. (Facebook / Snopes Illustration)
Meta began to form her artificial intelligence model, Meta AI, on Facebook and Instagram Posts departure In June 2024, according to previous reports of SNOPES, months before the publication of the problem of the gray or black box. Therefore, although it is not possible to definitively prove that the problem is not linked to AI training, the calendar indicates that META does not need a box to appear on Facebook in order to form AI using public comments.
According to Facebook, the company “will be known when something you have published goes against our community standards”, either in the flow of a user, or their Support for the reception box.
“As much as we can, we will refer to the part of the community standards that you have not followed, as well as a brief description of the reason why the content is not authorized, you can therefore prevent the content from being deleted in the future”, according to his Removal of content FAQ “If you think we have made a mistake by deleting your content, You can usually let us know. “”
Facebook pages on Removal of content,, technology He uses to detect and apply his rules and Community standards Do not mention the gray or black boxes; AI tends to hallucinateThis may explain why an AI glimpse like that provided to SNOPES by a reader would claim the opposite.