Meta prohibits links to JD Vance's hacked dossier on Threads, Instagram, and Facebook.

Meta has begun to restrict links on its platforms Threads, Instagram, and Facebook that direct to a post by Ken Klippenstein containing a dossier about JD Vance, which is said to have been obtained through hacking by Iranians targeting the Trump campaign. The company has removed posts that included these links and also appears to be blocking links to PDF documents of the dossier that are hosted on other sites.

A Meta spokesperson, Dave Arnold, explained that the company's policies prohibit sharing content from hacked sources or any leaked material as part of foreign influence operations related to elections in the United States. According to its community guidelines, sharing information obtained from hacked sources or relating to non-public information about elections that has been disclosed in a foreign government's influence operation is considered a violation.

Users on Threads have reported that their posts containing links to the dossier have been removed. Additionally, Meta seems to be disabling links that direct to documents hosted on other platforms, such as a Scribd link or one that supposedly led to a file on Google Drive. In response, many have opted to link to a Google search of Klippenstein's article or have attempted to share the direct link by using random spaces or replacing words with different punctuation. However, Meta has not blocked posts that discuss or seek the dossier.

On the other hand, the social network X has also begun to restrict links related to the story, while other social media users pointed out difficulties in sharing the document through their Google Drive accounts, although some, at least in particular cases, managed to share it among personal accounts. So far, there has been no response from Meta or other companies like Box, Apple, Dropbox, or Microsoft regarding potential additional restrictions on the document.