Despite efforts to curb hate speech and misinformation, Facebook still hosts a number of hateful and conspiratorial groups, including anti-Semitic and white supremacist groups with hundreds of thousands of members, and regularly recommends users join them, according to a study published Tuesday by the Anti-Defamation League. Though Facebook groups can be banned for repeatedly posting items flagged as false news, it’s possible to circumvent the regulations, leaving Facebook groups as largely self-moderated spaces ripe for bigotry and misinformation. Among the groups profiled in the study are “QAnon News & Updates” and “Official Q / QAnon Public Group,” whose over 200,000 combined members believe the conspiracy theory that a “deep state” of federal bureaucrats, Democrats and celebrities are plotting against President Trump and his supporters, while running an international sex-trafficking ring. In the groups, members frequently make anti-Semitic posts, theorize that the coronavirus pandemic is a hoax and speculate that the Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd’s death were paid for by outside actors like China, the Democrats or George Soros. White supremacist and racist groups also continue to run rampant on Facebook, according to the study, where racist memes and calls to “preserve our Race” are commonplace and over 20 groups are using the name “White Lives Matter”—though “only some are full of racist or white supremacist content.” Neo-Confederate and anti-Semitic groups with tens of thousands of members also remain uncensored on the platform, such as an anti-Semitic and broadly hateful private group entitled “Exposing the Rothschilds,” which has over 130,000 members. Moreover, the study notes Facebook’s recommendation feature often drives individuals toward hateful and conspiratorial groups, with 2016 internal research finding 64% of all individuals in extremist groups joined based on a suggestion from Facebook.
siehe auch: Hateful and Conspiratorial Groups on Facebook. Facebook Groups play a key role on the Facebook platform. Groups are essentially discussion forums organized around an endless number of possible subjects, allowing individuals to pursue their interests and communicate around shared interests. Groups can be public (posts are visible to all Facebook users) or private (individuals must be approved by the group administrator to join and see the posts). Despite public announcements of efforts to curb hateful speech and misinformation across its platform, Facebook still hosts many spaces in which this content propagates and thrives. While some of these problematic activities occur in small groups, a number of problematic Facebook groups have grown to a significant membership size, yet are still allowed to exist by Facebook. This is not by accident. Groups are largely self-moderated spaces overseen by specific users with administrative or moderator rights. Facebook states that groups can be banned for repeatedly reposting items that have been flagged as false news, but the system can be circumvented. While posts that break Facebook’s guidelines can be flagged to the platform by members in the group, some moderators actively warn their members not to report problematic content to Facebook. For example, the rules for the group “#RedneckIII%”, a nearly 2,000-member group associated with the militia movement (discussed more below), say “NO REPORTING If you dont like a post keep scrolling. Simple as that. Reporting to facebook is an automatic boot. You can contact an admin and we will check out your claim.”[sic] In many other instances, racist, homophobic, and other hateful posts are not deemed offensive enough by Facebook’s standards to warrant intervention. Facebook has a history of overlooking this kind of behavior, arguing that some hateful content does not go against their Community Standards.
