Facebook removes churches’ SermonAudio links

Dozens of churches over the weekend said Facebook deleted their posts that included links to sermons. The churches reported that the social media platform on Saturday began flagging and deleting links to SermonAudio, a media hosting company that many churches use to livestream and archive video, audio, and transcripts of sermons.

Littleton Baptist Church in Littleton, Colo. on Sunday posted that Facebook removed seven months of its sermon posts, while Tri-City Baptist Church near Phoenix lost all sermons shared on the social media platform. The SermonAudio’s own Facebook page was able to post links to its website again by Saturday night, it said. But the company added that Facebook deleted its prior posts.

Why did Facebook remove the posts? Screenshots of post removal notifications showed that Facebook deleted posts with SermonAudio links for going against its Community Standards. The notifications said the links breached cybersecurity and phishing standards. SermonAudio also received notices that the social media platform removed some posts because users reported the content as abusive, it said. Facebook had not directly responded to the company’s requests for an explanation as of Saturday, SermonAudio said. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, did not immediately respond to WORLD’s request for comment Monday.

Is the issue resolved? Some of the deleted posts on SermonAudio’s page appeared to be restored on Monday. The Presbyterian Church of North Carolina, a congregation in the city of King, N.C., on Sunday said that many of its SermonAudio posts had been restored, but some were still missing.

What did SermonAudio say about the issue? The incident underscored the need for private infrastructure to preserve Biblical preaching, the company said. Even if an innocent technical error was at fault, it was sobering how quickly content could be erased, SermonAudio said.