Facebook will warn users if they’re close to joining a gaggle that has repeatedly violated Facebook’s rules.
Facebook is getting tougher on groups that continually break Facebook’s rules. If a gaggle keeps violating Facebook’s policies, the platform will increase the severity of its punishments incrementally until the group is removed entirely.
Facebook Continues Its Crackdown on Harmful Groups
Facebook detailed the new measures it’s taking to secure groups during a post on the About Facebook blog.
To start, Facebook will display notifications to users if they’re close to joining a gaggle that has repeatedly violated Facebook’s Community Standards. The prompt will give users two options: Review Group and Join Group Anyway. This provides users an opportunity to reconsider joining the group in question.
Facebook also will “limit invite notifications” for these sorts of groups, which can deter users from joining. the prevailing members of rulebreaking groups even will notice that the group’s content will appear lower in their News Feeds, making it harder to seek out.
If an excessive number of group members have violated Facebook’s Community Standards, the group’s moderators and admins will need to approve all posts temporarily. And if a moderator continues to support positions that violate Facebook’s policies, the platform will take the group down altogether.
Facebook plans on holding group members accountable also. If a user has repeatedly broken Facebook’s rules, they’ll be unable to post or comment in any group on Facebook. The offending user also will be barred from creating new groups or inviting other users to groups.
To combat more severe violations of its rules, Facebook says that it’ll “outright remove groups and other people,” rather than gradually removing users’ privileges on Facebook or just limiting the reach of certain groups.
Facebook also noted that it’ll still remove low-quality groups from users’ recommendations. In September 2020, the platform stopped recommending health groups in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. And just before the 2020 US election, Facebook blocked political group recommendations to curb the spread of misinformation.
Can Facebook Put a Stop to Harmful Groups?
Facebook stated that the above changes would be launched around the world within the next few months. the critical question is: can Facebook successfully enforce these new rules?
It took down a vast “Stop the Steal” group in November 2020, which may be a sign that the platform isn’t afraid to require down sizeable groups thanks to policy violations. But even with all of those restrictions in situ, Facebook won’t be ready to catch all policy violations until harmful content has already been spread.
