Facebook no longer recommends new groups before the election |
Facebook announced on Friday that it will temporarily suspend proposals for new user groups ahead of the US presidential election on November 3.
Chairman Mark Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg) expressed concern about the high risk of civil unrest in the United States due to the election, which is the second day of news.
"I fear that our country is very divided. Election results may take days or weeks. In all cases, there is a risk of unrest," Zuckerberg said in a conference call on the third-quarter results on Facebook. Earth. "With that in mind, companies like us need to go beyond what we did before," he added.
The company also announced on Friday that it will limit the distribution of the hashtag "Save our children" in connection with the "conspiracy theory" organization QAnon, which Facebook banned earlier this month. "When people do the research, they now have access to reliable child safety resources," a company spokesperson said in a statement.
As we all know, Facebook groups are used to spread conspiracy theories and false information. The decision to filter out the new recommendations is a strategy that could slow the spread of false information in the final days of the US election.
Zuckerberg said at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday that the social media company will temporarily stop recommending civic groups.
Additionally, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, announced Thursday that it will temporarily disable the "last" tag on its tag page in order to reduce the spread of misinformation. Tags is a feature that allows users to view the most recent content categorized with specific hashtags, whether or not they are related to the topic.
The company has not revealed when these features will be reactivated.