What is 16.com on Facebook, and why is it prohibited?

Ever since strange websites like kekma.ga made the rounds online, I’ve become much more careful about opening links when I don’t know what’s inside. I simply don’t want to get tricked by random posts meant to prank people on social media.

Now, I always double-check the comments first to make sure nothing unexpected will happen. And of course, I never forget to turn down my device volume.

This website, “16.com,” is no exception. I noticed it was being discussed a lot on Facebook and Instagram posts.

I saw many users complaining that Facebook wouldn’t allow them to type 16.com (without quotes) in a post. Interestingly, the comments section seemed harmless. Nobody was angry or claiming they had been tricked.

What I did see were people challenging each other to try typing the domain in the comments. Some replies were completely unrelated to the original post.

I became curious and decided to try it myself by commenting “16.com”. And sure enough, Facebook refused to let me post it, even after several attempts!

A red warning icon (!) appeared along with a notification saying that 16.com couldn’t be shared because Facebook detected it as violating community standards. That made me wonder… why is this link blocked while so many others aren’t?

What Is 16.com?

When I searched for phrases like “What is 16.com” or “16.com Facebook meaning” on Google, nothing relevant or credible came up.

So I decided to type the domain directly into Google to see what would appear. Thankfully, nothing alarming showed up.

At first glance, the domain doesn’t look suspicious. To me, it seems like a domain that has never been actively used, or one that was used in the past but eventually expired and wasn’t renewed by the previous owner.

To check further, I looked up its ranking on Alexa. Surprisingly, the domain was listed at rank 831,739 in engagement and global internet traffic over the past 90 days.

That’s quite unexpected, considering the domain appears inactive. Other than that, there wasn’t much additional data.

I also checked SimilarWeb: global rank 454,889, best country rank 57,945 in China, and category rank 17,958 in Computer Electronics & Technology. Estimated total visits: 50k in one month, with an average visit duration of 16 minutes 17 seconds and nearly 20 pages viewed per visit. (Data taken at the time of writing.)

Very odd...

If 16.com has never been used before, why do analytics show numbers like these? Or maybe its recent attention comes from people testing it because Facebook and Instagram won’t let users type the domain.

Why Won’t Facebook Let You Type “16.com”?

What is clear so far is that Facebook blocks this domain from being shared on the platform. However, there is still no confirmed explanation for why the link is restricted.

The most likely reasons are that Facebook’s automated systems flagged it as potential spam or detected something that violated their community standards.

Could this website have once been linked to a Facebook competitor? Or was the domain previously owned by a company based in China?

There is no verified information to support either idea, but some users speculate about these possibilities.

A while back, I remember hearing that the social platform Tsu was blocked by Facebook after its security systems flagged the site as unsafe.

This makes me think that automated detection plays a big role in how Facebook treats certain links.

Out of curiosity, I also checked the neighboring domain, 17.com, which leads to a Chinese-language website.

Interestingly, that domain is not blocked on Facebook. So the exact reason behind 16.com being restricted remains unclear.

And that’s the explanation behind what 16.com means on Facebook. If you have more information or insight about this situation, feel free to share it.

I hope this short article helped clear up some of your curiosity. Thanks for reading!

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