Facebook cracks down on Stop the Steal before Joe Biden’s inauguration
Facebook is cracking down on the “Stop the Steal” rallying cry in an emergency transfer to move off potential violence before Donald Trump leaves workplace and Joe Biden is sworn in to take his place.
“We are now removing content containing the phrase ‘stop the steal,’” on Facebook an Instagram, the company said in a blog post.
The phrase refers to the president’s baseless charges that the presidential election that he decisively lost was rigged. His supporters proclaimed Jan. 6 as the day to convene in Washington to “save America” and “stop the steal” of the election.
“We’ve been 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,” Facebook said.
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The company has already removed “a significant number” of posts and plans to rapidly take away extra, it mentioned.
Facebook’s chief working officer Sheryl Sandberg on Monday claimed that the assault on the U.S. Capitol final week was largely organized on different platforms.
“We again took down QAnon, Proud Boys, Stop the Steal, anything that was talking about possible violence last week,” Sandberg mentioned in a live-streamed interview with Reuters. “Our enforcement is never perfect, so I’m sure there were still things on Facebook. I think these events were largely organized on platforms that don’t have our abilities to stop hate, don’t have our standards and don’t have our transparency.”
The “Stop the Steal” hashtag took off the day after the presidential election. The first Stop the Steal group was fashioned on Facebook on Nov. 4 and rapidly ballooned, reaching 320,000 members before Facebook shut it down.
Stop the Steal teams proliferated even after Facebook started closing them down, prompting Trump supporters emigrate to much less restrictive platforms resembling Parler as they organized final week’s Washington rally.
Sandberg’s feedback comply with Facebook’s determination to droop President Donald Trump for an indefinite interval however not less than till President-elect Joe Biden takes workplace. Late Friday, Twitter completely suspended Trump’s account.
“We have no plans to lift it,” Sandberg mentioned of Facebook’s suspension. “This showed that even a president is not above the policies we have.”
While the nation’s main social media firms moved in opposition to the commander in chief, they’d not but eradicated content material that incited final week’s violence at the Capitol.
BuzzFeed News reported Monday {that a} search on Facebook for “Stop the Steal” turned up dozens of locations the place new plots could possibly be coordinated. The information outlet discovered not less than 66 teams devoted to the slogan, the largest of which had over 14,000 members. However, a subsequent search by USA TODAY turned up zero outcomes for pages and teams, an early indication that Facebook was rooting out and eradicating all references.
Facebook additionally introduced Monday that it plans to stay stream Biden’s inauguration. After Biden takes workplace, Facebook mentioned it’ll place labels on any posts trying to delegitimize the election.
