Facebook Removes Hundreds of Accounts Spamming Political Info (theverge.com)

Facebook is purging hundreds of accounts and pages in the U.S., many of which spread political misinformation, for breaking the company's terms against "inauthentic" content and spam. The Verge reports: The company said in a blog post that 559 pages and 251 accounts would be removed. While the accounts used "sensational political content," Facebook did not say that was the reason for the purge. Instead, the accounts and pages will be taken down after they had "consistently broken" the company's rules against gaming its platform. Facebook noted that many used strategies like posting on fake or multiple accounts to generate traffic, or to inflate their popularity. Still, Facebook noted the proximity to the U.S. midterm elections, and said that networks like the ones it removed today are "increasingly" promoting political content that is "often indistinguishable from legitimate political debate." The company said this was the reason it has turned to "behavior" instead of "content" when searching for bad actors.

Comments

Re:So freedom of speech

[Gravis Zero]

So freedom of speech is now "sensational political content".

Not in the least. If you look at the tabloid-esque content that was being pushed through multiple accounts, you will see it was in fact maximally sensational.

Here's a more complete article that explains the type of content that was removed.

No freedom after speech as the account is removed.

You are one of these many misguided people that seems to think you can say anything you want and people have to just put up and listen to you. However, the truth is you are simply not being jailed for saying things. A site owner has zero obligation to keep your content on their site, especially when it just points to your own website which you make money off from.

Remember, the freedom of speech means you stay out of jail but does nothing to force people to listen to you.

often indistinguishable...

[linatux]

"often indistinguishable from legitimate political debate." - ie Legitimate political debate, but not what they agree with?

Re:So freedom of speech

[bill_mcgonigle]

Don't be a useful idiot - of course WashPo is going to highlight the sketchy pages and not not the anti-authoritarian pages. There were dozens of police accountability pages that were taken down - Copblock and the like. They had some opinion pieces, sure, and authority didn't like them, obviously, but most all of the content in the groups I saw disappeared was links to police brutality pieces. All gone, thanks for using Facebook.

The revolution will not be carried on corporate hosting platforms.

Re:Good luck with the jackboots Zuck

[Zontar The Mindless]

You don't even understand what "leftist" means; you've assigned your own (highly subjective and variable) definition to it and expect the rest of us to play along. Fuck that noise.