Days before Germany\u2019s federal elections, Facebook took what it called an unprecedented step: the removal of a series of accounts that worked together to spread COVID-19 misinformation and encourage violent responses to COVID restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The crackdown, announced Sept. 16, was the first use of Facebook\u2019s new \u201ccoordinated social harm\u201d policy aimed at stopping not state-sponsored disinformation campaigns but otherwise typical users who have mounted an increasingly sophisticated effort to sidestep rules on hate speech or misinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the case of the German network, the nearly 150 accounts, pages and groups were\u00a0linked\u00a0to the so-called Querdenken movement, a loose coalition that has protested lockdown measures in Germany and includes vaccine and mask opponents, conspiracy theorists and some far-right extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facebook touted the move as an\u00a0innovative response\u00a0to potentially harmful content; far-right commenters condemned it as censorship. But a review of the content that was removed \u2014 as well as the many more Querdenken posts that are still available \u2014 reveals Facebook\u2019s action to be modest at best. At worst, critics say, it could have been a ploy to counter complaints that it doesn\u2019t do enough to stop harmful content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis action appears rather to be motivated by Facebook\u2019s desire to demonstrate action to policymakers in the days before an election, not a comprehensive effort to serve the public,\u201d concluded researchers at Reset, a U.K.-based nonprofit that has criticized social media\u2019s role in democratic discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facebook regularly updates journalists about accounts it removes under policies banning \u201ccoordinated inauthentic behavior,\u201d a term it created in 2018 to describe groups or people who work together to mislead others. Since then, it has removed thousands of accounts, mostly what it said were bad actors attempting to interfere in elections and politics in countries around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there were constraints, since not all harmful behavior on Facebook is \u201cinauthentic\u201d; there are plenty of perfectly authentic groups using social media to incite violence, spread misinformation and hate. So the company was limited by its policy on what it could take down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But even with the new rule, a problem remains with the takedowns: they don\u2019t make it clear what harmful material remains up on Facebook, making it difficult to determine just what the social network is accomplishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Case in point: the Querdenken network. Reset had already been monitoring the accounts removed by Facebook and issued a report that concluded only a small portion of content relating to Querdenken was taken down while many similar posts were allowed to stay up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dangers of COVID-19 extremism were underscored days after Facebook\u2019s announcement when a young German gas station worker was\u00a0fatally shot\u00a0by a man who had refused to wear a mask. The suspect followed several far-right users on Twitter and had expressed negative views about immigrants and the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dozens of far-right extremists use Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter to promote their brands, new research shows. By carefully toeing the line of propriety, key architects of Germany\u2019s far-right harness the power of mainstream social media to promote festivals, fashion brands, music labels and mixed martial arts tournaments that can generate millions in sales and connect like-minded thinkers from around the world. But simply cutting off such groups could have unintended, damaging consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All told, there are at least 54 Facebook profiles belonging to 39 entities that the German government and civil society groups have flagged as extremist, according to research shared with The Associated Press by the Counter Extremism Project, a non-profit policy and advocacy group formed to combat extremism. The groups have nearly 268,000 subscribers and friends on Facebook alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facebook initially declined to provide examples of the Querdenken content it removed, but ultimately released four posts to the Associated Press that weren\u2019t dissimilar to content still available on Facebook. They included a post falsely stating that vaccines create new viral variants and another that wished death on police that broke up violent protests against COVID restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reset\u2019s analysis of comments removed by Facebook found that many were actually written by people trying to rebut Querdenken arguments, and did not include misinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facebook defended its action, saying the account removals were never meant to be a blanket ban of Querdenken, but instead a carefully measured response to users who were working together to violate its rules and spread harmful content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Facebook plans to refine and expand its use of the new policy going forward, according to David Agranovich, Facebook\u2019s director of global threat disruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a start,\u201d he told The AP on Monday. \u201cThis is us extending our network disruptions model to address new and emerging threats.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The approach seeks to strike a balance, Agranovich said, between permitting diverse views and preventing harmful content to spread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new policy could represent a significant change in the platform\u2019s ability to confront harmful speech, according to Cliff Lampe, a professor of information at the University of Michigan who studies social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn the past they\u2019ve tried to squash cockroaches, but there are always more,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can spend all day stomping your feet and you won\u2019t get anywhere. Going after networks is a smart try.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the removal of the Querdenken network may have been justified, it should raise questions about Facebook\u2019s role in democratic debates, said Simon Hegelich, a political scientist at the Technical University of Munich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hegelich said Facebook appears to be using Germany as a \u201ctest case\u201d for the new policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFacebook is really intervening in German politics,\u201d Hegelich said. \u201cThe COVID situation is one of the biggest issues in the election. They\u2019re probably right that there\u2019s a lot of misinformation on these sites, but nevertheless it\u2019s a highly political issue, and Facebook is intervening in it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Members of the Querdenken movement reacted angrily to Facebook\u2019s decision, but many also expressed a lack of surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe big delete continues,\u201d one supporter posted in a still-active Querdenken Facebook group, \u201cSee you on the street.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Klepper reported from Providence, R.I. Associated Press writer Barbara Ortutay contributed to this report from Oakland, California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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