Since some users found they could not share the article, this prompted suspicions as its subject matter was the Internal Security Service (ISS).

On Friday, ERR asked the Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority (TTJA) why Facebook had the day before continued to block sharing an article concerning ISS officials published by ERR on July 5.

The ISS is known in Estonian as Kapo, an abbreviation of its full name, and the article in question shed light on efforts to go undercover at a University of Tartu fraternity gathering as part of an investigation into real estate deal corruption allegations.

The block had continued even after Facebook's parent company, Meta, had confirmed on the Thursday that the sharing issue had been resolved.

Grete Leesmann, information environment expert at the TTJA, told ERR Friday: "We also informed Meta yesterday afternoon that the Kapo article could still not be shared on the platform."

"In its reply received today, Meta informed [us] that the technical problem with the ERR domain had been resolved on the Facebook platform," Leesmann added.

Several experts in the field who spoke to ERR on condition of anonymity suggested that since Meta uses artificial intelligence (AI) to moderate content, the share block may have been automated – given the link with the ISS being a more sensitive factor.

If the article was being "over-shared," this may also have triggered an automated ban, some experts said, as it may have been adjudged to have been spam.

The TTJA said that it tested the sharing of various ERR articles during the day, reporting no further issues.

Meta has not provided any further explanation tot he authority on why the ISS article had been temporarily unshareable, Leesmann added.

Social media user rights in the EU are protected by the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA), which together regulate in particular the activities of the major digital platforms like Meta.

Additionally, the European Media Freedom Act, is to enter into force from next summer, setting additional requirements on the protection of journalistic content.

Meta, the parent company of social media platform Facebook, on Friday barred its users from sharing an article published via ERR's Estonian-language portal on which reported officers from the Internal Security Service (ISS) having attended an event as guests and under false names.

The officers had allegedly tried to gather information about members of the University of Tartu korp! Sakala alumni fraternity, in connection with a real estate purchase the fraternity made.

On the same day, the ERR also contacted the TTJA to clarify the reason for the ban.

On Thursday, Facebook's parent company Meta responded to the TTJA's request and confirmed that the article could be shared in the future, adding that a technical glitch had been behind the earlier inability to share.

However, Facebook also removed the article about ISS officials that had been shared on Thursday evening.

The TTJA informed Meta that this was a wider problem, which also affected other ERR articles and their sharing on Facebook.

In its reply, Meta confirmed that this is also a priority issue for the company, adding that they are investigating what caused the problems and how to avoid similar situations in the future.

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