Facebook Says It Is Removing All Content Mentioning 'Stop the Steal' -- 4th Update
January 11 2021 - 10:37PM
Dow Jones News
By Sarah E. Needleman
Facebook Inc. said it is removing all content mentioning "stop
the steal, " a phrase popular among supporters of President Trump's
unproven claims of election fraud, as part of a raft of measures to
stem misinformation and incitements to violence on its platform
ahead of President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration.
The announcement was one of a number of new measures announced
by tech giants Monday in an effort to deter further unrest after
the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol last week. Twitter Inc. said
it has removed more than 70,000 accounts since Friday that spread
the QAnon conspiracy theory, whose followers believe Mr. Trump is
under assault by Satan worshipers.
"We've been clear that we will take strong enforcement action on
behavior that has the potential to lead to offline harm," Twitter
said in a blog post. "Given the violent events in Washington, DC,
and increased risk of harm, we began permanently suspending
thousands of accounts that were primarily dedicated to sharing
QAnon content on Friday afternoon."
Facebook, Twitter and several other prominent technology
companies -- including Snap Inc., Reddit Inc. and others -- already
had taken steps in recent days to silence the president's personal
accounts or online communities devoted to him, citing rules
prohibiting content that incites violence.
The moves followed the deadly attack on the Capitol Wednesday by
a mob of Trump supporters, who stormed the building after the
president and his allies urged them to march on it as lawmakers
convened inside to certify Mr. Biden's Electoral College
victory.
Amazon.com Inc. said aid Monday it is removing some products
related to the QAnon conspiracy theory. Separately, Airbnb Inc.
said it is expanding safety measures ahead of the inauguration,
including banning anyone confirmed to have played a part in the
violence at the Capitol last week.
Facebook also said Monday that it would uphold its decision last
week to suspend Mr. Trump from posting for at least two weeks, with
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg saying at the time that the risks
of the president using Facebook during this period were too
great.
The social-media giant said it would continue to pause all U.S.
ads about politics or elections, including those from Mr.
Trump.
"With continued attempts to organize events against the outcome
of the U.S. presidential election that can lead to violence, and
use of the ['stop the steal'] term by those involved in Wednesday's
violence in DC, we're taking this additional step in the lead up to
the inauguration," Facebook said in a blog post.
"It may take some time to scale up our enforcement of this new
step but we have already removed a significant number of posts,"
the company said.
Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google also each removed from
their app stores the social-media service Parler, which had been
soaring in popularity among conservatives and other right-wing
users and is known for its loose rules for posting content.
Amazon's action on QAnon follows the company's decision to end
web-hosting services for Parler, which has featured violent
rhetoric in connection with last week's pro-Trump riot in
Washington, D.C. Amazon said it wasn't confident in Parler's
ability to sufficiently police content on its platform that incites
violence. Parler sued Amazon on Monday in response.
Followers of the fringe QAnon conspiracy theory, which has been
labeled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a domestic
terrorist threat, were among those that stormed the U.S. Capitol on
Wednesday. QAnon T-shirts, books and hats have been among the items
available on Amazon. Amazon says its policies prohibit products
that "promote, incite or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual
or religious intolerance or promote organizations with such
views."
Amazon is still selling merchandise related to the president.
Shopify Inc., a Canadian-based e-commerce software provider, last
week took down online stores run by the Trump Organization and
Trump campaign following the riot.
As part of its announcement Monday, Facebook said it would add
to its news feed curated stories about the inauguration and show
live video of the event when it takes place at the Capitol on
January 20. Separately, Facebook said it hired civil-rights
attorney Roy Austin as vice president of civil rights and deputy
general counsel and that he will establish a new civil-rights
organization for the company. Mr. Austin was previously a partner
at the law firm Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP specializing in
criminal-defense and civil-rights law.
Facebook has taken action against the "stop the steal" movement
before, removing a group called "Stop the Steal" in November that
the company said had been organizing protests of vote counts around
the country. Around that time Facebook also introduced features
designed to limit the spread of false and possibly dangerous
content, such as one that requires users seeking to share
election-related material to click through a notice encouraging
them to visit Facebook's voting-information center.
Georgia Wells and Sebastian Herrera contributed to this
article.
Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 11, 2021 22:22 ET (03:22 GMT)
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