Facebook makes changes to Facebook Groups to reduce harmful content, misinformation

Facebook has recently announced “a number of changes” to Facebook Groups in a bid to reduce harmful content and misinformation.

It has brought in new rules for admins and moderators to prevent violation of Community Standards.

Going forward, admins and moderators of groups who have been flagged and taken down by Facebook for policy violation will not be able to create any new groups “for a period of time.”

The posts of group members who have been flagged for violating Community Standards will now require approval for the next 30 days in that group.

“This stops their post from being seen by others until an admin or moderator approves it. If admins or moderators repeatedly approve posts that violate our Community Standards, we will remove the group,” Facebook said.

Facebook will also begin to archive groups that have been without an admin for some time.

“Moving forward, when a single remaining admin chooses to step down, they can invite members to become admins. If no invited members accept, we will suggest admin roles to members who may be interested. If no one accepts, we’ll archive the group,” Facebook said.

Apart from this, it is removing health groups from recommendations to reduce misinformation. People will still be able to invite friends to health groups or search for them.

It is also limiting the reach of extremist groups and groups such as Qanon to reduce harmful content.

Over the past year, the social media major has removed about 1.5 million pieces of content in groups for violating its policies on organized hate along with 12 million pieces of content in groups that violated its policies on hate speech, it said.

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