Mark Zuckerberg declares war on those who spread hatred, racism and misinformation on Facebook and closes 23 pages very popular with Italians. Here are which are
A few days ago, the administrators of several Italian Facebook Pages had a bitter surprise: the social network decided to close their accounts. The reasons were then widely explained by the company, which in recent years has been carrying out several campaigns against the spread of hate and fake news.
Facebook has closed a total of 23 pages with over 2 million members. The decision came in a very important time of the year for the political and social climate: in fact, in a few weeks will be held the European elections, and the social network has the ability to influence the results of the vote with the content posted and shared by many private and public accounts. To prevent such interference, the social network has decided to eliminate the root of the problem by deleting the many pages propagating hatred, false information and controversial content.
Facebook takes action
Mark Zuckerberg’s team is determined to clean up all accounts that incite hatred and spread false news, packaged to divide, mislead, and distance people from the truth. Until recently, the social network had developed some functions to stimulate the publication of quality news, but now the actions are even more incisive. In view of the European elections, public opinion will be even more influenced by what circulates on the social network. For this reason, the company shut down 23 Italian Facebook pages where anti-Semitic, racist and anti-vaccine content was being shared. The news were often misrepresented or completely false, built ad hoc to influence users.
Which are the closed pages and why?
Over half of the closed pages openly supported Lega and Movimento 5 Stelle. Among these there are “We want the 5 Star Movement in government” which had 129 thousand followers, where a false quote of Roberto Saviano was published, then denied by the writer. In addition to this were also closed “Beppe Grillo for President” with 307 thousand fans or “Lega Salvini Premier Santa Teresa di riva” which is the most active among those closed. From here one of the most viral videos of the last months started: a group of migrants destroying a car of the carabinieri. The video, which has received more than 10 million views, is actually taken from the scene of a film.
This page, like many others, was published with a name totally unrelated to the Carroccio, but after a few name changes, it has become a supporter of the ideas of the League.
The decision of Mark Zuckerberg
The measure came after an analysis conducted by Avaaz, an NGO that supports environmental campaigns and defends human rights. The study was followed by an investigation conducted by the social network that scanned the pages and closed inappropriate ones, in order to protect the integrity of the elections in Europe. Many of the blocked accounts violated the name change policy and spread misinformation. So although the technical motivation is related to name change, these accounts were also responsible for broadcasting negative content.
The social network put together a large team to monitor the content posted by users during the elections. The work of the different teams composed of engineers, researchers, scientists and security experts began on May 2 in Dublin. There are 500 people involved in the project and they are working full time to avoid instrumentalization in view of the European vote.