Tag: Facebook

Facebook refers Trump ban to independent Oversight Board for review

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Facebook’s independent Oversight Board has accepted a referral from the platform to review its decision to indefinitely suspend former President Trump.

Why it matters: While Trump critics largely praised the company’s decision to remove the then-president’s account for potential incitement of violence, many world leaders and free speech advocates pushed back on the decision, arguing it sets a dangerous precedent for free speech moving forward. 

What they’re saying: “We believe our decision was necessary and right,” Nick Clegg, Facebook’s VP of global affairs said in a statement. Continue reading.

Scoop: Facebook freezing political spending after Capitol attack

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Facebook is halting political spending for at least the first quarter of 2021 following last week’s deadly attack on the Capitol.

Why it matters: Tech companies have been de-platforming President Donald Trump and his supporters at a rapid pace since the attacks, and freezing political giving may be the next step tech companies take to show they’re seriously rethinking their approach to Washington.

Details: Facebook will freeze all contributions from its political action committee and is launching a review of its political spending practices, company spokesman Andy Stone told Axios. Continue reading.

How Twitter and Facebook plan to handle Trump’s accounts when he leaves office.

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Many world leaders generally have wider latitude on Twitter and Facebook because their comments and posts are regarded as political speech that is in the realm of public interest. But what will happen to President Trump’s accounts on the social media platforms when he leaves office?

At Tuesday’s hearing, Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, said the company would no longer make policy exceptions for Mr. Trump after he leaves office in January. During Mr. Trump’s time as a world leader, Twitter allowed him to post content that violated its rules, though it began adding labels to some of the tweets starting in May to indicate that the posts were disputed or glorified violence.

“If an account suddenly is not a world leader anymore, that particular policy goes away,” Mr. Dorsey said. Continue reading.

Facebook bans QAnon across all its platforms

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Facebook announced on Tuesday it would ban all accounts, pages and groups representing the fringe conspiracy theory QAnon from its platforms.

Why it matters: Facebook previously banned or restricted hundreds of groups, pages and Instagram accounts that “demonstrated significant risks to public safety” due to their ties to QAnon, but the latest update goes even further — removing all accounts “even if they contain no violent content.”

Context: QAnon is a sprawling, far-right conspiracy theory that falsely alleges a secret cabal of sex traffickers and pedophiles is waging a war against President Trump from inside the government. Trump has previously praised the group, which the FBI has deemed a potential domestic terrorist threat, saying that he understands its supporters “like me very much” and that they “love America.” Continue reading.

Facebook blocking new political ads ahead of election

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Facebook on Thursday announced that it would ban new political advertisements from its platform in the week leading up to the November election as part of an effort to combat misinformation about voting. 

The step is one of a series of moves Facebook said it planned to take in order to “secure the integrity of this year’s elections.” The company additionally said it would remove posts falsely saying people can develop the coronavirus by voting and would attach “information labels” to other content attempting to delegitimize voting methods or the election’s outcome.

And in the event that a candidate declares victory before the final results are in, the company will add labels to the posts directing people to authoritative information, Facebook said.  Continue reading.

Facebook Confirms Russia Is Intervening In 2020 Election

It’s no secret that Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin are hoping that President Donald Trump will defeat his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, in November — as they rightly view Trump as much more sympathetic to Russian interests. The Trump administration has already confirmed that they are intervening once again. And according to Facebook, Russian operatives are trying to manipulate U.S. voters this year on the social media platform just as they did during the 2016 presidential election.

CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan reports Facebook announced that a St. Petersburg, Russia-based troll group that interfered in the 2016 election, the Internet Research Agency, is trying to interfere in this year’s election as well. O’Sullivan notes that a “network of Facebook accounts and pages” that the social media platform removed was “set up to look and operate like a left-wing news outlet.” Facebook removed the Russian troll pages after receiving a tip from the FBI.

“This is the first publicly available evidence that people connected to the Russian troll group, which is known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA), are using unwitting Americans in an attempt to meddle with the 2020 election and stir discord,” O’Sullivan reports. “The operation seems to have been shut down before it could get much traction on Facebook or the rest of the internet.” Continue reading.

Facebook takes down Russian operation that recruited U.S. journalists, amid rising concerns about election misinformation

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The social media giant acted against a small network of pages and accounts that directed users to a fake left-leaning news site called Peace Data

Facebook removed a network of fake accounts and pages created by Russian operatives who had recruited U.S. journalists to write articles critical of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala D. Harris, in an apparent bid to undermine their support among liberal voters.

Facebook said it caught the network of 13 fake accounts and two pages early, before it had a chance to build a large audience — an action that the company said was evidence of its growing effectiveness at targeting foreign disinformation operations ahead of the 2020 election. The takedown emerged as a result of a tip from the FBI and was one of a dozen operations tied to the Russian Internet Research Agency or individuals affiliated with it that Facebook has disrupted since the last presidential election, when IRA-backed pages amassed millions of views on the platform. The pages had about 14,000 followers.

“They’ve gotten better at hiding who they are, but their impact has gotten smaller and smaller,” Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, said of the foreign operations. Continue reading.

Facebook Braces Itself for Trump to Cast Doubt on Election Results

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The world’s biggest social network is working out what steps to take should President Trump use its platform to dispute the vote.

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook spent years preparing to ward off any tampering on its site ahead of November’s presidential election. Now the social network is getting ready in case President Trump interferes once the vote is over.

Employees at the Silicon Valley company are laying out contingency plans and walking through postelection scenarios that include attempts by Mr. Trump or his campaign to use the platform to delegitimize the results, people with knowledge of Facebook’s plans said.

Facebook is preparing steps to take should Mr. Trump wrongly claim on the site that he won another four-year term, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Facebook is also working through how it might act if Mr. Trump tries to invalidate the results by declaring that the Postal Service lost mail-in ballots or that other groups meddled with the vote, the people said. Continue reading.