Facebook Deleting Posts Promoting Lockdown Protests to Combat ‘Harmful Misinformation’
Facebook is working with state governments across the U.S. to tamp down organized protests that violate stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic, according to new reporting.
CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan reported Monday that the social media website “has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events in California, New Jersey, and Nebraska after consultation with state governments.” The CNN report cited a spokesman from Facebook who said the protests were in violation of states’ guidelines.
The spokesman, O’Sullivan reported, “said Facebook would take down posts created through the Facebook Events feature that promote events in California, New Jersey and Nebraska. Other Facebook posts, including Facebook groups about the protests, might not be removed.”
Says it is working to get answers from New York, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Pennsylvania as to whether anti-quarantine protests breaks those states’ social distancing measures.
— Donie O’Sullivan (@donie) April 20, 2020
As an increasing number of protests have popped up throughout the country, public officials and health experts have warned that breaking social distancing guidelines could worsen the spread of Covid-19, and reopening the country too soon will backfire if new outbreaks force another round of shutdowns. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos spoke to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg on Monday about how the platform is addressing the pandemic, and Zuckerberg said the website is tackling content that promotes “harmful misinformation.”
“If somebody’s trying to organize something like [a protest], does that qualify as harmful information?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“We do classify that as harmful misinformation and we take that down,” Zuckerberg said. “It’s important that people can debate policies, so there’s a line on this, but more than normal political discourse, I think a lot of the stuff that people are saying that is false around a health emergency like this can be classified as harmful misinformation.”
Facebook did not respond to Mediaite’s request for comment.
UPDATE – 2:07 p.m. ET: A Facebook spokesperson elaborated to Reason that “Unless government prohibits the event during this time, we allow it to be organized on Facebook. For this same reason, events that defy government’s guidance on social distancing aren’t allowed on Facebook.”
Watch above, via ABC.
