Facebook users wanting to post links to another social media site will find their comment blocked, it has emerged.
When people try to add a link to Tsu.co, which is a small invite-only social network, Facebook blocks the post and does not let it appear.
Even mentioning it in private on Facebook Messenger will not work, and earlier posts including links to Tsu have been deleted, CNN has reported.
Yet this is apparently not an aggressive competitive strategy but an effort by Facebook to prevent "spammy behaviour", according to Mashable.
Tsu.co is a social media site whose users get financial rewards for sharing content, with the site keeping 10 per cent of the ad revenue and the rest distributed among contributors.
As a result, said Facebook, Tsu users were creating fake accounts to boost their pages and Facebook users were reporting Tsu.co links as spam.
Facebook said that sites like Tsu violate its rules on spamming, which is defined by the social media firm as "sending bulk messages, excessively posting links ...and sending friend requests to people you don't know personally."
A Facebook spokesperson told Mashable: "We require all websites and apps that integrate with Facebook to follow our Platform Policy.
"We do not allow developers to incentivise content sharing on our platform because it encourages spammy sharing and creates a bad experience for people on Facebook.”
Yet Tsu users say the site has been unfairly targeted, with at least one million previous Facebook posts mentioning Tsu.co having also been removed.
Carolina Franco from Colombia told CNN: "Very few people even know about Tsu. I don't believe that Facebook and Instagram want Tsu to go viral. It would cost them a lot of money."
Income from ad revenues, which Facebook keeps 100 per cent of, rose by 11 per cent this for the company this year, the BBC recently reported.
