US: Before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, social media company ‘Facebook’ has announced to ban all content with the phrase “stop the steal” on its platforms.
The company had initially removed the original “Stop the Steal” group in November 2020.
“We are treating the next two weeks as a significant civic event,” Facebook said in a statement late on Monday.
“We are now eliminating content containing the phrase ‘stop the steal’ under our Coordinating Harm policy from Facebook and Instagram,” said Guy Rosen, VP Integrity.
“We removed the original Stop the Steal group in November and have continued to remove Pages, groups, and events that break any of our policies, including calls for violence,” added Monika Bickert, VP Global Policy at Facebook.
The company is seeking additional steps after the Capital Chaos by pro-Trump supporters.
“It may take some time to scale up our enforcement of this new step, but we have already removed an essential number of posts.”
.Facebook said it would keep its Integrity Operations Center operating at least through January 22 to watch and respond to threats in real-time.
In addition to President Trump’s account’s indefinite suspension, Facebook announced it is keeping its pause in place on all ads in the US about politics or elections.
“This means that we aren’t allowing any ads from politicians, including President Trump.
.”“After the inauguration, our label on posts that attempt to delegitimise the election results will reflect that Joe Biden is the sitting president,” the social network said.
During inauguration week, the company will add a news digest to Facebook News as a curated place for people to find reliable news about the inauguration.
This will include a live video of the inauguration at the US Capitol on January 20.
The Mayor of Washinton DC already urged authorities to provide extra security on the inauguration day.
