Facebook Clamps Down on Groups Spreading 'Misinformation'

Facebook has announced plans to crack down on groups that spread what it considers misinformation on its platform, introducing new “probationary periods” for groups that regularly violate rules.

Mashable reports that tech giant Facebook has announced plans to prevent the spread of what it considers misinformation within the groups on its platform. Facebook will now put certain Facebook Groups in “probation” periods of 60 days. During this timeframe, all posts in the groups must be manually approved by a group administrator or moderator in an attempt to have them take responsibility for the content posted in the groups.

If Facebook finds that many of a group’s posts violate its community standards policies, the group could face a probationary period. All groups on the platform will be subject to these new rules, whether they are public or private.

If the groups continue to violate Facebook policies during the probationary period, the company will ban the group. Facebook previously announced a version of this new policy in relation to Groups in September. The updated policy appears to include a longer probation period.

Currently, administrators and moderators can control what content is allowed within their groups, but moderation of any sort is completely up to the moderators and admins. If they choose not to remove any posts featuring misinformation then their group could be at risk as part of this new Facebook Groups policy.

Breitbart News recently reported that Facebook has announced that it plans to demote content “our systems predict may be misinformation” relating to election fraud. A Facebook spokesperson told Forbes that the social media company is “seeing more reports of inaccurate claims about the election” and “while many of these claims have low engagement on our platform, we are taking additional temporary steps.”

The spokesperson told Forbes that Facebook would be taking a number of actions including “demotions for content on Facebook and Instagram that our systems predict may be misinformation, including debunked claims about voting” and “limiting the distribution of Live videos that may relate to the election on Facebook.”