diff --git a/changelog.d/11985.misc b/changelog.d/11985.misc
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..11e8718511d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog.d/11985.misc
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Use Facebook user agent for openGraph queries
diff --git a/synapse/rest/media/v1/preview_url_resource.py b/synapse/rest/media/v1/preview_url_resource.py
index 8d3d1e54dc9f..434b9a47f8b8 100644
--- a/synapse/rest/media/v1/preview_url_resource.py
+++ b/synapse/rest/media/v1/preview_url_resource.py
@@ -402,7 +402,10 @@ async def _download_url(self, url: str, output_stream: BinaryIO) -> DownloadResu
                 url,
                 output_stream=output_stream,
                 max_size=self.max_spider_size,
-                headers={"Accept-Language": self.url_preview_accept_language},
+                headers={
+                    "Accept-Language": self.url_preview_accept_language,
+                    "User-Agent": "facebookexternalhit/1.1 (+http://www.facebook.com/externalhit_uatext.php)"
+                },
                 is_allowed_content_type=_is_previewable,
             )
         except SynapseError: