Facebook groups have been a popular way for those who are against the mainstream coronavirus narrative to gather and discuss. But Facebook wants users to get their information from “authoritative sources” and has announced that it will now block health-related groups completely from recommendations.
Facebook has released numbers related to the actions it took on “violations” of its rules with regards to groups. Facebook Groups, for a long time now, have been at the receiving end of intense criticism from the media and have been accused of being the breeding grounds for controversial theories.
Although the social media platform has announced in the past that it has been taking action against groups that violated the platform’s controversial rules, concrete statistics had never been shared till now.
Based on the figures the Big Tech social media company released this week, it was revealed that more than one million groups had been removed and an excess of 13 million posts were deleted for violations of “hate speech.”
Facebook had also stated that it did not depend on any external entity for the audits and that it was completely an internal job.
Another quoted example that Facebook says it wants to crack down on is the QAnon movement and Facebook Groups have been a popular place for supporters to gather and share ideas. As the QAnon movement grew into the millions, Facebook moved to try and suppress it by deleting groups and cutting conversations.
Facebook has now announced that it is going to restrict moderators as well as administrators from creating any new groups for 30 days after they’ve been punished for violating any rules regarding groups.
Finally, the social media platform is also not going to recommend health groups to people anymore, as the platform believes that it is best if people get their news from “authoritative sources.”
Facebook says that although groups can “be a positive space for giving and receiving support during difficult life circumstances … it’s crucial that people get their health information from authoritative sources.”
