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WASHINGTON: Facebook said on Thursday (November 5) that it had taken down a fast-growing group in which some supporters of US President Donald Trump posted violent rhetoric and unsubstantiated claims that Democrats were stealing elections.
By Thursday afternoon, the “Stop the Steal” group, which called for “boots on the ground to protect the integrity of the vote,” was adding 1,000 new members every 10 seconds and had grown to 365,000 members in a single day.
“The group organized around the delegitimization of the electoral process and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group,” a Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement.
He said the move was in line with the “exceptional measures” that Facebook was taking during “this period of heightened tension.”
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Trump and high-profile Republican accounts have spread unsubstantiated and discredited claims about the integrity of the US elections on social media, and the #StopTheSteal hashtag has gained momentum.
The “Stop the Steal” group had prepared for Facebook to take action, directing new members to an email sign-up page “in case this group was censored by social media.”
Another group that used the same name but with different administrators told its members that threats would not be allowed and that they should take precautions such as using images with words instead of text. This group, which had more than 2,000 members, also said it would go private in a few days.
Any Facebook user can view, search, and join public Facebook groups, while only members can view posts from private groups.
Facebook has labeled the groups as community forums for shared interests, but watchdog organizations and social media researchers have argued that they may be hotbeds of hyperpartisan misinformation.
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“Facebook has been enabling and amplifying the infrastructure that is now being used to attack our democratic process,” said Arisha Hatch, executive director of the racial justice group Color Of Change.
Facebook, which typically recommends groups to users they want to join based on their activity on the site, suspended these recommendations for political groups and new groups around the elections last week.
The group “Stop the Steal”, now eliminated, was led by the Trump Women for America First action group. The nonprofit organized protests against the COVID-19 restrictions and supported Trump during his impeachment hearing.
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On Twitter, one of the administrators of the Facebook group, Amy Kremer, said: “The left is trying to steal an election and social media is complicit,” she said. “This is outrageous!”
Facebook rules prohibit statements of intent or advocacy of violence due to voting, voter registration, or the outcome of an election.
