THUMBS DOWN

Internal Report Finds Facebook Failed to Curb ‘Stop the Steal’ Juggernaut

Within 24 hours of being made, the “Stop the Steal” group had amassed 300,000 members, with an additional 1 million waiting to join.

A internal Facebook report has found that the social media giant failed to curb the “Stop the Steal” movement before it grew into a full-blown insurrection, counter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s claims that Facebook protected “the integrity” of the 2020 election and made itself “inhospitable to those who might do harm.” BuzzFeed News says the report found that a “Stop the Steal” Facebook group was taken down after just a day but had already amassed 300,000 members, with another 1 million waiting to join. Facebook was alerted to the group due to high levels of hate speech and slurs used by commenters. But it then splintered into offshoot groups that Facebook was slow to act on because they weren’t sure if it was a cohesive movement until after the Capitol was stormed.

A Facebook spokesperson insisted that they took steps to ban content that delegitimized the election, including suspending Donald Trump’s account and putting labels about vote counts when Trump prematurely declared victory.