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Threatening Bans, Facebook Will Now Require Moderation For Groups Spreading Misinformation (mashable.com) 216

Posted by EditorDavid from the mandatory-moderation dept.
"While the election may have now been called for Joe Biden, our misinformation nightmare is far from over," quips Mashable: As unsubstantiated pro-Trump conspiracies about election fraud continue to spread on the internet, Facebook is taking further action with Facebook Groups, a feature that is often weaponized by misinformation spreaders. According to Facebook, the social networking company will now put certain problematic Facebook Groups in "probation" periods. During this 60-day timeframe, all posts to these groups must be manually approved by a group's administrators or moderators.

A group will be placed in this probationary state if the company finds that many of its posts are violating its community standards policies. There will be no appeals process for the probation period. All groups, whether public or private, are subject to probation.

If policy violation problems continue to persist within these groups during the probationary period, Facebook will ban the group.
A Facebook spokesperson tells CNET these actions are being taken "temporarily...in order to protect people during this unprecedented time."
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Threatening Bans, Facebook Will Now Require Moderation For Groups Spreading Misinformation More

Threatening Bans, Facebook Will Now Require Moderation For Groups Spreading Misinformation

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  • Because the option of allowing group founders and moderators to allow/block posts as they like and people to freely associate with them by joining or not joining if they want to see them or not is right out for the folks at Facebook, right?

    They're not the government, but they're surely driving people off their platform for alternatives.

    • Re:Facebook shows it's tyrannical overreach (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Citizen of Earth ( 569446 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @12:55AM (#60701858)
      Don't let the Fakebook Ministry Of Truth hear you talking like that!
    • Facebook is still where all the house wives and angry uncles congregate though. So I think these groups still need to use Facebook in order to have access to a big audience.

    • They're not the government, but they're surely driving people off their platform for alternatives.

      I oppose censorship by corporations, but I don't see anyone leaving the platform yet because of this.

      • I've seen at least two complete groups pick-up and move elsewhere (fan groups for fiction authors) and three more post instructions on where to go when Facebook eventually goes after the moderators and closes the group down after they don't moderate as Facebook desires.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

          Good, why should all these groups be behind a walled garden, that is censorship by exclusion. At least with Twitter you can easily join with a pseudonym.

          And to anyone who ever said forcing people to use their real names would stop trolling, lies and misinformation my answer is: Facebook.

          I sincerely hope all good groups leave Facebook and set up in a more open manner.

    • Re:Facebook shows it's tyrannical overreach (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Vinegar Joe ( 998110 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @03:07AM (#60702120)

      "I don't want to sound like a killjoy, but because this is not to my taste I don't think anyone else should be allowed to enjoy it." - Marge Simpson

    • "They're not the government, but they're surely driving people off their platform for alternatives."

      They are a private company and they can throw out whoever they dislike or who is ruining their business, just like you in your house.

    • Facebook is a private company just like slashdot. Slashdot deletes posts here all the time. Is that tyrannical overreach? If you disagree with how facebook handles their content feel free to use the dozens of other social media platforms. I see many triggered Trump supporters moving to Parler now.

  • Section 230 (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Citizen of Earth ( 569446 )
    Facebook fully transitions from a Platform into a Publisher.

    • They appear to be counting on no opposition.

      Time to remove dissenting voices while the opportunity exists.

      • They are hoping for Biden admin to let them have free reign to do what ever they want problem is they don't look at head to fact won't last for ever or long. With every ban they push the the claim of fake info they just add one for name to the pile of people that show they are acting like a publisher.

      • They appear to be counting on no opposition.

        Time to remove dissenting voices while the opportunity exists.

        Actually they did, Freedom Watch (if that doesn't ring a bell perhaps Laura Loomer does) filed a lawsuit and was dismissed https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com] These ideas has no basis in law.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      Kinda. This could actually be quite a clever move by Facebook as far as potential changes to Section 230 are concerned. Yes, they are introducing potential liabilities under Section 230 by moderating content rather than being entirely hands-off, but *they* are not responsible for those moderations - the group admins/moderators are. Facebook's argument - if needed - will no doubt be that the company *is* just a carrier, but where certain groups are flagged to us we make the users managing those groups vet,

    • So? (Score:4, Informative)

      by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @06:22AM (#60702460) Journal

      It doesn't matter [techdirt.com]

      47 U.S. Code  230 - Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material [cornell.edu] is actually very understandable to anyone with a grasp of basic English.

    • Facebook isn't doing the moderating. The private moderators of the group are doing the moderating.

  • k. (Score:2)

    by SeaFox ( 739806 )

    Facebook Groups in "probation" periods. During this 60-day timeframe, all posts to these groups must be manually approved by a group's administrators or moderators.

    So... The people who created the pro-Trump group and the moderators of said group will now have to manually approve posts claiming the election was rigged?

    Yes, I'm sure this will clean up that erroneous information spreading straight away.

  • They've got to do something (Score:4, Insightful)

    by battingly ( 5065477 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @01:00AM (#60701872)
    They're a business, but they are not in the business of conveying free speech. They're in the business of selling ads. Advertisers are not going to want to put ads on a platform that's full of toxic hateful lies. FB has no choice but to try to clean up the sewage.

    • If people will believe the Clinton Pizza pedophile story then they will probably also fall for carefully designed advertisements.

      Buy Boffo Beans and fart on a leftie!

    • Re:They've got to do something (Score:5, Insightful)

      by arbiter1 ( 1204146 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @02:47AM (#60702090)
      You say that but then forget they are only "cleaning up" one side while the other is allowed to post Illegal content like calling for harming and beating people.

    • Re:They've got to do something (Score:4, Informative)

      by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @05:53AM (#60702418) Homepage

      Ah, but their definition of "misinformation" is fascinating. Example: A statistician did an analysis of vote numbers. All votes for all candidates in the battleground states nicely follow Benford's law. Except for Joe Biden - his numbers do not. According to the statistician, this is a clear sign that of tampering.

      I'm too lazy to hunt down the mathematical article, but here's a similar (non-technical) article [thegatewaypundit.com]. Google-fu will get you others as well.

      The point is: Facebook bans links to articles like this. Alleging that election fraud might be responsible for Biden taking Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin is "fake news", even if there is strong evidence that it is true.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Cederic ( 9623 )

        Here's a brief analysis from a statistician: https://threadreaderapp.com/th... [threadreaderapp.com]

        Here's an example of Benford's Law being used to assess electoral fraud in Wisconsin - in 2016: https://www.purdue.edu/discove... [purdue.edu]

        I did see it suggested that Biden's results do follow Benford's Law - except in the swing states. But I don't have a credible source to support that one; mentioning it only because it would be a far bigger anomaly if demonstrated. However, compare and contrast:
        National numbers: https://www.reddit.com/r/ [reddit.com]

        • ... But I don't have a credible source to support that one; mentioning it only because it would be a far bigger anomaly if demonstrated.

          Exactly. I've seen several people claim an analysis using Benford's law suggests an anomaly... but the only actual data I've seen posted is from 2016.

          Some nice visualizations... with no link to data.

          • Re:No credible source [Re:They've got to do someth (Score:4, Informative)

            by Cederic ( 9623 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @09:43AM (#60702986) Journal

            If only the very first link I provided included not only a link to the data but software code to retrieve it.

            Oh wait. It did.

            • Ah, thanks, I missed that. I can do the data analysis myself (but just import them into a spreadsheet, not by writing a script.)

              The correct way to start is to plot a histogram to see the range of the data, just so you can see if the data spans an order of magntude... and what that shows is that the vote numbers are a strongly peaked function with a width less than an order of magnitude.

              Darn. Benford's law doesn't apply.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Cederic ( 9623 )

                Then it would also not apply to Trump's figures, Jorgensen's or indeed, Biden's in the non-swing counties.

                • Then it would also not apply to Trump's figures, Jorgensen's

                  Depends on whether Trumps figures are peaked functions spanning less than an order of magnitude or not

                  Doing a histogram to see... yes, very different skew. Trump's vote counts is also peaked, but that peak spans order of magnitude (from two digits to three digits). Biden's don't (mostly mid three digits). And, graphing Jorgensen's vote counts, they span two orders as well (in his case, the order of magnitude range from 1 digit to two digits).

                  So, Trump and Jorgensen may approach Benford's law applicabilit

      • Trump told his followers to not trust voting by mail. When states start counting all the mail in votes guess who they favor?

        • Please explain why mail in ballots would magically violate Benford's law.

        • Then why go through the bother of preventing Republican poll watchers from observing the process of counting the mailed ballots? The problem isn't that it's unexpected for mailed ballots to break for Democrats, it's that there are very good reasons to believe that tens of thousands of them are fake. One of those reasons is that Democrats won't allow anyone else to see the ballots. Why would they do that? Why would Democrats prevent the legally required processes from being carried out? You don't do tha

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        Ah, but their definition of "misinformation" is fascinating. Example: A statistician did an analysis of vote numbers. All votes for all candidates in the battleground states nicely follow Benford's law. Except for Joe Biden - his numbers do not. According to the statistician, this is a clear sign that of tampering.

        Walter Mebane, a political scientist and statistician at the University of Michigan, was the first to apply the second-digit Benford's law-test (2BL-test) in election forensics.[34] Such analyses are considered a simple, though not foolproof, method of identifying irregularities in election results and helping to detect electoral fraud.[35] A 2011 study by the political scientists Joseph Deckert, Mikhail Myagkov, and Peter C. Ordeshook argued that Benford's law is problematic and misleading as a statistical indicator of election fraud.[36] Their method was criticized by Mebane in a response, though he agreed that there are many caveats to the application of Benford's law to election data.

    • They're just bowing to the new leadership, trying to avoid the Biden administration's wrath. Facebook had a solid run making money selling ads and distributing Trump conspiracy theories and misinformation.

      But now it's time to look responsible.

    • Okay... But legitimate allegations of election fraud/cheating based on evidence like sworn testimony from eye witnesses aren't "toxic hateful lies". The "toxic hateful lies" are what the media has been pumping out since 2016.

    • It is absolutely Facebook's business to convey free speech. If people believe that Facebook is actively targeting and manipulating what people post, They will leave for other platforms faster than you can say Myspace, and you can't sell ads when no one is looking at them.

      Frankly, It's not Facebook's job to fact check posts. It's your job. Just because people are too lazy and or too stupid to fact check doesn't mean that Zuck all of a sudden has to step in and fact check for them. Back in the day, no one sla

  • This should be interesting... (Score:3)

    by hyades1 ( 1149581 ) <hyades1@hotmail.com> on Monday November 09, 2020 @01:05AM (#60701884)

    Given that Zuckerberg, the little prick, has been dining at Trump's table for at least the last two or three years, it will be interesting to see, after all the current political activity dies down, how Facebook decides to define "misinformation". Forgive my cynicism, but I suspect it won't be anything like what people are thinking.

    • Re:This should be interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PolygamousRanchKid ( 1290638 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @02:43AM (#60702078)

      Given that Zuckerberg, the little prick, has been dining at Trump's table for at least the last two or three years

      Oh, just wait . . . he'll be dining at Biden's table really soon.

      It doesn't matter Democrat or Republican . . . he wants to schmooze with whoever is in power. If the Proud Boys or the Antifa folks staged a coup d'etat and set up a US dictatorship, the Zuck would be dining with them, as well.

      A few years ago, although a political outsider, Zuck was considering a run for President. I think his schmoozing with Trump was for him to learn how to elected as President, as an outsider.

      Zuck is still thinking, if Trump can do it, I can too.

      • Zuck is still thinking, if Trump can do it, I can too.

        (Zuck) "They 'trust me'. Dumb fucks."

        Hell, it worked to create Facebook.

        I'm certain that would make a great campaign slogan too.

  • Pretty Despicable (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @01:16AM (#60701930)
    Facebook have known, likely for more than the last fur years, that their platform was used by Russian trolls, among others, to suppress the vote, to spread misinformation and to disenfranchise Americans.

    For the last four-plus years, Facebook did nothing. Now, waking up to the reality that their tacit support for a malignant narcissist and compulsive liar wasn’t enough, they’re trying to make like they’ve been responsible citizens all along.

    No. Not even close.

    The lies and hate they peddled or allowed to be peddled on their platform cost lives.

  • So, once I get a moderator (system) one can spread misinformation.
    That's cool and delicate and and also boolsheet!

    • So, once I get a moderator (system) one can spread misinformation.
      That's cool and delicate and and also boolsheet!

      Whatever gave you that idea?

  • I am in one such group, Russians making fun of US (Score:5, Insightful)

    by iamacat ( 583406 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @02:16AM (#60702026)

    But this development is not fun. Trump tweets are idiotic, but citizens questioning election bureaucrats is part and parcel of a free country. Consider how you would feel is social media in Russia or Turkey instituted a similar policy of cracking down on questioning public. It's not the same situation obviously, but how is this a step in the right direction?

    • Does this make you a Russian troll? So many questions ...

    • These companies really do need to lose 230 protections. What they're calling misinformation is their editorial opinion. IF they're fully engaging in editorial practices then they're a publisher.

      How far should we take this? If I go out and tell people that there are unexplained irregularities in the election then should I be arrested? Should I be gagged? Do people need to get a license before they say anything?

      My view of this is really simple. We have irregularities and when their response is to simply
  • Does it include the Holy Bible, the Koran, the Talmud, the Book Of Mormon, Scientology, Jainism, Veda and Buddism, Confucius, Marx, Engels, Mao, Paltrow's Goop, Homeopathy, Wicca - pretty much all philosophical, homeopathic, medieval medicine and economic writings?

    • The ability to spread 'misinformation' is the primary requirement for a free country, unless it is slander against an individual, with a very high margin of error towards allowing speech directed against persons in power.

      Because if "misinformation" was disallowed and actively prevented, it immediately becomes a dictatorship, because whoever defines "information" from "misinformation" is now the dictator. They don't need to hold any public office, or have any other military command. All it takes for someone

      • Many people think this is a left versus right battle but it's not as simple as that. Each side traditionally has their radical fringe and people who believe in stuff.

        What we're fighting against is a kind of authoritarianism that is one where you really just say stuff and that's it. Whether or not it really has any baring on reality doesn't matter.

        It happens this has cropped up on the left but anyone can do it. The phenomena is such that nothing they say means anything. They might as well not have mout

  • in a dictatorship.

    That is the primary hallmark of it: There is a ruling power that you cannot depose, talk about deposing, talk about their misdeeds.

    Everything else we associate with dictatorships, the secret courts, secret police, secret camps, secret everything, people disappearing, careers destroyed for wrongthink - it is just a side-effect of the ruling power using any means neccessary to prevent them from getting deposed.

    The mistake that we made was thinking about "persons in government" only when it c

  • This is the information age, where you have more information than you could ever possibly process. The idea of somehow controlling or mediating that information seems ludicrous, but then the idea of not doing anything seems equally dangerous. Anyone claiming they have an easy or simple answer to this isn't seeing the bigger picture. This is an unholy mess of an issue.

  • Apparently there is a mass exodus to (or, if not an exodus, a mass adoption of) a social media app called Parler. Right wingers are embracing it as an "uncensored" alternative to Facebook and Twitter. Yesterday I tried to add a friend, and it was being hammered so hard it wasn't available. Parler CEO said that they had 2 million new accounts created in a single day, and is the #1 app downloaded *globally*. (https://www.newsweek.com/parler-tops-app-store-ios-android-charts-conservatives-twitter-biden-trum

  • Why didn't they do this BEFORE the election?
  • They boarded up the windows then lied about going home, continued counting at 4 AM, and then every single ballot they found suddenly was for Biden and he got astronomical turnout and votes in only counties where it heavily mattered. UNSUBSTANTIATE DEEZ NUTS. The assholes running Facebook tried to steal/rig the election for the last 6 months. It's clear as day who they want to win and now they're trying to steer the narrative again and stop recounts. Well, thanks for slowing down progress. The longer Trump k

  • Unfair Targeting (Score:3)

    by WoodburyMan ( 1288090 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @08:12AM (#60702676)

    This is a flat out lie. This are doing this to about 90% of the groups out there. I am in 3 small local town community groups (Where people gripe about zoning changes, kids walking on their lawns, etc etc) and I admin one of them. EVERY SINGLE one of those groups was hit by this probationary thing. There's 3 admins for a 5,000 member groups that cannot keep up with post approvals. The one I admin, we have given up and moved to MeWe for our local group and having people post in there since we cannot effectively moderate everyone's Lost Dog/Cat post and "ISO/Selling" posts in reasonable time limits. Facebook is really russing to get Section 230 removed. Given the Senate will be GOP majority, House gained a lot of GOP seats, and the Court now have a Conservative lean, they're set to have that removed. It's still 3+ months before Ajit Pai may possibly vacate, but only if by choice. He can fight it and stay in longer until he is forcefully replaced if wanted.

    This combined with their major censorship for people that "dont know better" hopefully starts their downfall.

  • If you don't like the policies of facebook then don't use it. All the rabid Trump followers seem to have moved to Parler now.

    • So we end up with a society of people in an even worse echo chamber, where everyone is silo'ed with those of their own belief.

  • Please set politics aside for a moment and pause to consider what is happening. A US company on behalf of a political party is censoring US citizens that are concerned with election integrity in a very close US elections. Very recently UN condemned Iran and Egypt for similar actions.

  • It's OK to continue claiming Russian involvement in the 2016 election even though none was ever found. And it's not ok to suspect voting irregularities in the 2020 election while investigations are just beginning?

  • They spent 4 years convincing us that our elections were rife with Russian fraud,

    Now, they’re as pure as the driven snow?

    Serious question: Would there have even been a Russian investigation had Hillary run?

    Two short years ago, you were insane if you believed in the integrity of US elections.

    Now, you’re insane if you don’t believe in the integrity of US elections.

    “Interference? In US elections? Pffft, pish-tosh, maybe if you’re a conspiracy nut!”

    I don’t care what par

    • They spent 4 years convincing us that our elections were rife with Russian fraud,

      To be fair: multiple investigations showed that Russian hackers did, in fact, work hard to influence, and where possible disrupt, the U.S. elections, but none of the investigations ever suggested that they penetrated the actual voting system.

      Primarily their interest seemed to be in sowing discord.

    • Re:Hold On (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jbengt ( 874751 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @10:34AM (#60703264)
      You are conflating a Russian propaganda influence campaign with an actual interference in the tabulation of votes. Russia has been very successful in sowing discord and distrust in the US, but there's no evidence they've acutally tampered with the votes. It's not impossible for them to tamper in jurisdictions using electronic voting, but it's much easier for them to tamper with things like voter registration rolls. (YMMV state by state and county by county)

  • I've seen a bunch of people on FB say that they are moving to Parler, which claims to be viewpoint-neutral, and does not have any explicit policy against hate speech or misinformation. Sounds like that has the potential to become a new echochamber for QAnon types.

  • What would happen if you stopped posting things to facebook group completely?
    If you still wanted to use FB to co-ordinate / advertise, only post headlines and links to your own blog and encourage all discussion to occur on your blog rather then FB. Then FB cannot sensor anything you post or any discussion and further more lose advert revenue as well. Win win. Your facebook group becomes a pointer to your content and the foobish snobs at FB can either. Also include on your blog a click through that says

  • internet problems (Score:3)

    by kaatochacha ( 651922 ) on Monday November 09, 2020 @11:41AM (#60703550)

    Real world: deals with problems and issues with things like taxis, hotels, free speech vs. libel.
    Internet companies: somehow believe because they add "on the interwebz" to the business, the issues they encounter are NEW and UNIQUE, and they have an easy solution for them.

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