Attack on the independent publication Gândul, the strongest opposition newspaper in Romania. For more than two months, Facebook has shut down the newspaper’s page with 1 million followers and refuses to restore it. Millions of views disappeared overnight

The company Meta, which operates the Facebook platform, shut down the Gândul newspaper’s page on February 22, 2026, without any warning or clear explanation. In a single day, the page disappeared and Gândul’s traffic collapsed, with an immediate loss of 6–7 million daily views and nearly 200 million monthly views on Facebook and on the website.

The newspaper’s social media extension—certified by Facebook with a “blue checkmark”—had over 1 million followers and generated hundreds of millions of views each month. Facebook is drastically limiting the public’s right to access information from the Gândul platform.

In the absence of explanations regarding the restriction, and considering that the newspaper has acted in good faith and followed journalistic ethics in informing the public, we consider this action by Facebook to be an attack on press freedom in general and on an independent publication in particular, as well as a violation of rights guaranteed by the Romanian Co...