A new outside report found that Facebook has allowed groups \u2014 many tied to QAnon, boogaloo and militia movements \u2014 to glorify violence during the 2020 election and in the weeks leading up to the deadly riots on the U.S. Capitol in January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Avaaz, a nonprofit advocacy group that says it seeks to protect democracies from misinformation,\u00a0identified 267 pages and groups\u00a0on Facebook that it says spread violence-glorifying material in the heat of the 2020 election to a combined following of 32 million users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than two-thirds of the groups and pages had names that aligned with several domestic extremist movements, the report found. The first, boogaloo, promotes a second U.S. civil war and the breakdown of modern society. The second is the QAnon conspiracy, which claims that Donald Trump is waging a secret battle against the \u201cdeep state\u201d and a sect of powerful Satan-worshipping pedophiles who dominate Hollywood, big business, the media and government. The rest are various anti-government militias. All have been largely banned from Facebook since 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But despite what Avaaz called \u201cclear violations\u201d of Facebook\u2019s policies, it found that 119 of these pages and groups were still active on the platform as of March 18 and had just under 27 million followers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facebook acknowledged that its policy enforcement \u201cisn\u2019t perfect,\u201d but said the report distorts its work against violent extremism and misinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The company said in a statement that it has done more than any other internet company to stanch the flow of harmful material, citing its bans of \u201cnearly 900 militarized social movements\u201d and the removal of tens of thousands of QAnon pages, groups, and accounts. It added that it is always improving its efforts against misinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai are slated to testify before Congress about extremism and misinformation on their platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facebook has tightened its rules against violence, hate and misinformation in the past year. In October, it\u00a0banned QAnon groups\u00a0across its platform. Before that, it would remove them only if they expressly supported violence. It has also banned extremist and militia movements and\u00a0boogaloo groups\u00a0with\u00a0varying degrees\u00a0of success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For instance, while Facebook\u00a0banned \u201cStop the Steal\u201d groups\u00a0from its platform, Avaaz \u2014\u00a0like The Associated Press\u00a0\u2014 found that such groups and the #stopthesteal hashtag remained active on the platform after the purge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facebook\u2019s failures, Avaaz said, \u201chelped sweep America down the path from election to insurrection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the report, the social network provided a \u201cfertile ground\u201d for misinformation and toxicity that contributed to radicalizing millions of Americans, helping create the conditions in which the storming of the Capitol became a reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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