Facebook gets tougher with groups that violate its community guidelines

 

Facebook has announced new measures to prevent its interest-based forums called Groups from spreading harmful content, like hate speech and misinformation.

The measures come after the social networking platform faced criticism for its groups being linked to protests that led up to the Capitol riot in the US earlier this year.

"We know we have a greater responsibility when we are amplifying or recommending content," Tom Alison, Vice President of Engineering at Facebook, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.

These new changes will roll out globally over the coming months, Facebook said.

The social networking giant said that when a group starts to violate its rules, it will now start showing them lower in recommendations, which means it is less likely that people will discover them.

This is similar to its approach in News Feed, where the platform shows lower quality posts further down, so fewer people see them.

"We believe that groups and members that violate our rules should have reduced privileges and reach, with restrictions getting more severe as they accrue more violations, until we remove them completely," Alison said.

"And when necessary in cases of severe harm, we will outright remove groups and people without these steps in between."

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