Facebook Bans Posts that Question Election Results
Social media giant reveals it is targeting content that suggests voter fraud
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Facebook has begun banning posts that question election results by blacklisting phrases that make suggestions or allegations of voter fraud.
The Mark Zuckerberg-owned social media giant announced that it has started by removing all content that mentions “Stop the Steal.”
The phrase is popular among supporters of President Donald Trump and is a reference to the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
On Monday, the Big Tech company said it is removing “Stop the Steal” content from Facebook and Instagram.
It claims that such language could incite riots on Inauguration Day, considering the violence that broke out last week on Capitol Hill.
“We are now removing content containing the phrase ‘stop the steal’ under our Coordinating Harm policy from Facebook and Instagram,” Facebook said in a blog post.
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"We began preparing for Inauguration Day last year,” the company added.
"But our planning took on new urgency after last week’s violence in Washington, D.C., and we are treating the next two weeks as a major civic event."
In November, Facebook shut down a group called “Stop the Steal,” which had garnered over 364,000 members, according to Breitbart.
“We removed the original Stop the Steal group in November and have continued to remove Pages, groups and events that violate any of our policies, including calls for violence,” said Facebook.
The company went on to claim that it is “allowing robust conversations related to the election outcome and that will continue.”
“But with continued attempts to organize events against the outcome of the US presidential election that can lead to violence, and use of the term by those involved in Wednesday’s violence in DC, we’re taking this additional step in the lead up to the inauguration,” continued Facebook.
“It may take some time to scale up our enforcement of this new step but we have already removed a significant number of posts,” the company added.
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On January 7, Facebook and Instagram locked President Trump out of his accounts “indefinitely.”
Twitter, on the other hand, permanently banned the president from its platform.
On Monday, an Idaho internet provider announced it is blocking Facebook and Twitter for its customers.
The company states that it does not condone Big Tech companies censoring users or “trying to exterminate the competition,” such as Parler.
