At the start of March 2025, social media users began seeing gray or black boxes appear on Facebook when attempting to leave a comment.
Posts on Reddit and Facebook asked for a fix or raised alarm over the issue. Online users debated what the rectangles were; while some said it was just a bug or glitch, others insisted it indicated that Facebook was surveilling or censoring comments. "All you have to do is type the word 'Trump' … and it appears,'" one Facebook commenter said. "This is deliberate, not a glitch."
(Facebook)
Snopes readers also asked whether the transparent boxes meant people were being "tracked or censored," and one reader sent an artificial intelligence-generated overview claiming the "gray filter" indicates that the post is being flagged for "potentially violating their community standards."
As of this writing, gray or black boxes — depending on if the user's device is in light or dark mode — sometimes appear when attempting to leave a comment using a device running iOS, Apple's mobile operating system; it is unclear whether this issue has appeared on Android devices.
However, there is no evidence that these boxes appear because Facebook is flagging, screening or censoring comments, nor is there evidence that this is part of Facebook's effort to train AI on user posts and comments. In an emailed statement, Tracy Clayton, a spokesperson for Facebook's parent company, Meta, said the gray boxes were "the result of a bug in a version of Facebook for iOS that was introduced on March 1."
"A fix has been submitted to the App Store and should be going out in the coming days," Clayton said. "No sense yet on how widely this is occurring."
It is possible that the gray or black rectangles represent a glitch with Facebook's tagging system, as it does seem to appear when Facebook believes the user is attempting to tag someone, even if that is not the case. The social media platform does use technology to enforce its rules and public comments to train its AI model, Meta AI, but there is no indication the boxes have anything to do with those practices.
Despite claims otherwise, attempting to comment "Trump" did not result in a gray rectangle — at least while using an iPhone 15 running the most recent version of iOS as of this writing — nor did writing "Democratic Party" or "Republican Party." This suggests that the Facebook gray box issue is not because the company is trying to censor or screen political comments.
Writing "Trump," "Democratic Party" and "Republican Party" did not result in gray boxes. (Facebook / Snopes illustration)
However, typing "Donald" resulted in a gray box; so did writing "Jane Doe" as an example placeholder name. The box also appears directly above the comment field, exactly where the tagging function usually pops up when Facebook believes a user is attempting to tag another user, usually a Facebook friend (the reporter on this story has Facebook friends with the names "Donald" and "Jane" but not "Trump"). When writing a comment, in every instance where the issue happened, the tagging feature appeared first. This indicates that the gray rectangle may be a glitch with Facebook's tagging system, as suggested by some users. The box appeared, without fail, when using the @ function to tag any Facebook account — not just Facebook friends.
Writing "Donald" and "Jane Doe" resulted in gray rectangles; so does invoking the tag function using an "@" then adding a space. (Facebook / Snopes illustration)
Furthermore, it is relatively simple to make the box go away: switch to the emoji or GIF keyboard and the rectangle disappears. This suggests that it has nothing to do with surveillance and is likely a glitch, as there is no reason to stop surveilling a user after switching to a different keyboard.
Switching to a GIF keyboard makes the gray box disappear on Facebook. (Facebook / Snopes illustration)
One Reddit commenter said the gray rectangle is not specific to tagging people. However, it is possible that users may not realize that Facebook thinks they are trying to tag someone, as the user may be writing out a word like "gray," for example, resulting in Facebook offering to tag a user's friends with names like "Grayson." Users may also have Facebook friends with first or last names beginning with the same letters as "Trump" or other politics-related words, thus potentially resulting in the issue appearing.
Attempting to tag "snopes.com" resulted in a gray box. (Facebook / Snopes illustration)
Writing "gray" results in the issue if the user has a friend with "gray" in their name. (Facebook / Snopes illustration)
Meta began training its artificial intelligence model, Meta AI, on Facebook and Instagram posts starting in June 2024, according to previous Snopes reporting, months before the gray or black box issue appeared. Therefore, while it is not possible to definitively prove that the issue isn't connected to AI training, the timeline indicates that Meta does not need a box to appear on Facebook in order to train AI using public comments.
According to Facebook, the company will "let you know when something you posted goes against our Community Standards," either in a user's feed or their support inbox.
"As much as we can, we'll reference which part of the Community Standards you didn't follow, as well as a brief description of why the content isn't allowed, so you can avoid having content removed in the future," according to its content removal FAQ. "If you believe that we made a mistake in removing your content, you can usually let us know."
Facebook's pages on content removal, the technology it uses to detect and enforce its rules and community standards do not mention gray or black boxes; AI has a tendency to hallucinate, which may explain why an AI overview like the one provided to Snopes by a reader would claim otherwise.