Facebook says it removed 1 million groups in past year for breaking rules

Facebook's groups have been targeted by critics in recent years for their roles as hubs for political extremism, conspiracy theories and misinformation.

But over the last year, it has struggled with how and to what extent to moderate its tens of millions of the mostly private groups.

It also removed or restricted thousands of groups and pages dedicated to armed militias and the QAnon conspiracy theory, following an internal investigation that uncovered thousands of groups and pages with millions of members and followers.

Facebook also announced a series of small changes around how it will enforce its existing rules and recommend groups, in an effort to reduce harmful content and misinformation. Administrators and moderators of groups taken down for breaking rules will no longer be able to create any new groups for 30 days, a move seemingly meant to stop users from evading group bans.The change doesnt account for users who create backup groups in anticipation of bans, a widely used tactic by anti-vaccination groups, QAnon supporters and other extremist groups.

As part of this action, it has been proactively alerting individual users in groups without administrators, suggesting they fill the role.

Groups around health have long been criticized as networks for dangerous misinformation surrounding the coronavirus, vaccines, harmful fake cures and scams.

Original article