UPDATED 22:44 EDT / JANUARY 23 2019

APPS

Facebook may shut down more groups and pages suspected of peddling fake news

Facebook Inc. said today it’s taking more steps to cut down on the dissemination of fake news by proactively axing some pages and groups.

The net has widened somewhat, since now Facebook says it may delete these pages and groups even if they haven’t violated the platform’s community standards. Now the company says it take down pages that are affiliated with existing publishers that have transgressed, so people or organizations might not be able to just reappear as another name. In short: Recidivists begone.

“We’ve long prohibited people from creating new Pages, groups, events, or accounts that look similar to those we’ve previously removed for violating our Community Standards,” the company said. “However, we’ve seen people working to get around our enforcement by using existing Pages that they already manage for the same purpose as the Page we removed for violating our standards.”

Facebook also said in a blog post Wednesday that managers of pages will now see a new tab that will let them know when their content has been taken down or when distribution has been reduced because the content was flagged by a third-party fact-checker.

This new “Page Quality” tab is “designed to help people who manage Pages understand how well their Pages comply with our guidelines.” Managers will not only be told if something has been removed, but may see a rating of content with the ignominious warnings “False,” “Mixture” or “False Headline.”

Facebook said that there will be no warning for content removed if it’s spam, clickbait or an IP violation, but the Page Quality section will let people know if they’ve posted anything containing “hate speech, graphic violence, harassment and bullying, and regulated goods, nudity or sexual activity, and support or praise of people and events that are not allowed to be on Facebook.”

This all comes just over a week after Facebook announced it had removed around 500 accounts, pages and groups it said was linked to Russian misinformation campaigns. Such peddlers of suspect content no doubt want to return under another name, and perhaps the latest move might appease the large number of critics that say Facebook isn’t doing enough to combat the spread of fake news.

Image: vpnsrus/Flickr

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