Facebook cracking down harder on fake Pages and Groups

Facebook has announced stricter rules surrounding fake Pages and Groups on its platform.

Specifically, Facebook says it will now remove Pages, Groups, events or accounts that appear to be affiliated to those that have already violated its Community Standards. Facebook notes that these other parties will be removed even if they “[have] not met the threshold to be unpublished on its own.”

This is to prevent offenders from working around Facebook enforcement by using other Pages or Groups, including those that already exist, according to the company. Facebook says it will reinforce this updated policy by looking at “a broad set of information, including whether the Page has the same people administering it, or has a similar name, to one we’re removing.”

To help users stay on top of content they’ve posted that could violate Facebook rules, the social media giant says it has also added new tools for Page and Group managers ‘Page Quality’ tab.

In this section, Page owners will get an overview of all their content that has violated Community Standards. The first section of this tab looks at content recently removed for violating these rules, while the second section notes content recently rated ‘False,’ ‘Mixture’ or ‘False Headline’ by third-party fact-checkers. Facebook says this tab is meant to give users a better idea of their behaviour, although it’s not intended to be comprehensive.

For example, Facebook says it won’t provide breakdowns of content taken down for reasons related to “spam, clickbait, or IP violations.”

Source: Facebook