Facebook groups were filled with calls for violence ahead of the US election

Before Facebook the group of Facebook “Stop the Steal” Growing, the forum included calls for members to prepare their weapons if President Donald Trump loses his bid to stay in the White House.

By disabling the group after coverage by Reuters and other news outlets, Facebook He cited the forum’s efforts to delegitimize the electoral process and the “worrying calls for violence from some members”.

Such rhetoric was not uncommon in the run-up to elections in Facebook groups, a key engine of engagement for the world’s largest social network, but it hasn’t always received the same treatment.

A survey of groups of Facebook

US-based Between September and October, led by digital intelligence firm CounterAction at the behest of Reuters, found rhetoric with violent overtones in thousands of public-purpose groups with millions of members.

Twenty sentence variations that may be associated with calls for violence, such as “ lock and charge ” and “ we need a civil war ”, appeared alongside references to election results in about 41,000 cases on public Facebook groups based in the United States in both periods of the month.

According to CounterAction, other phrases, such as “shoot them” and “kill them all,” have been used in public groups at least 7,345 times and 1,415 times. “Hang It On” has appeared 8,132 times. “It’s time to start filming, my friends,” read a comment.

Facebook said it was reviewing CounterAction’s findings, which Reuters shared with the company, and that it would take action to implement policies “that reduce damage and civil unrest in the real world, including in the groups, ”according to a statement provided by spokesperson Dani Lever.

The company declined to say whether the examples shared by Reuters violated its rules or where it draws the line when deciding whether the phrase “incites or facilitates serious violence,” which its policies say constitutes a reason for deletion.

Prosecutors have linked several disrupted militia conspiracies to Facebook groups this year, including a planned attack on Black Lives Matters protesters in Las Vegas and a plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan.

In response to these concerns, Facebook has announced a series of policy changes since the summer aimed at curbing “militarized social movements” including US militias, Boogaloo networks and the conspiratorial QAnon movement.

He says he has removed 14,200 groups based on these changes since August.

As pressure on the company escalated ahead of the election, Zuckerberg said Facebook would stop recommendations for political groups and new groups, although the move does not prevent the “Stop the Steal” group from growing in over 365,000 fewer members. 24 hours.

Meaningful connections

Facebook has actively promoted the groups since CEO Mark Zuckerberg made them a strategic priority in 2017, saying they would encourage more “meaningful connections,” and this year featured the company in a Super Bowl commercial.

Last month it stepped up promotion of the groups in news sources and search engine results, even as civil rights organizations warned the product had become fertile ground for extremism and disinformation.

Any Facebook user can view, search, and join public groups. Groups also provide private options that hide posts or the existence of the forum, even when a group has hundreds of thousands of members.

Facebook said it relies heavily on artificial intelligence to monitor forums, especially private groups, which generate few reports of inappropriate user behavior because members tend to be like-minded, for flag posts that can prompt action. violent for human content reviews.

While the use of violent language doesn’t always amount to an exploitable threat, Matthew Hindman, a media and machine learning expert at George Washington University who reviewed the results, said the Facebook’s artificial intelligence should have been able to select common terms for its review.