Did Facebook let some pro-Trump People get away with disinformation campaigns? Well that’s what a report in the Washington Post says.
Mark Zuckerberg promised that his company would prevent a repeat of what happened in 2016 when false new in support of Donald Trump’s presidential bid proliferated on the social media network. The slanders spread included accusations that Hilary Clinton was somehow involved in a child sex ring at a Washington DC pizzeria. This led to a shooting at the restaurant by someone who believed the lies.
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As a result, the public was promised that Facebook would suspend suspicious accounts and do a better job of filtering out fake news from its news feeds.
But according to the Post, accounts belonging to Donald Trump Jr and to America First Action, the biggest pro-Trump super PAC were not vetted.
America First Action’s Facebook page had numerous instances of fake news appearing on it in violation of Facebook’s new policies, the Post found. Yet the publication says that it found no evidence that any action was taken against the organization’s page.
The reason suggested for this is that Facebook may have been cowed by campaigns made by supporters of President Trump which have painted the company as having a pro-liberal agenda in its content policies. As a result, it may have chosen to avoid conflict with people closely associated with Donald Trump such as his family members.
Meanwhile Facebook has been shutting down or suspending the accounts of insignificant people around the world. One woman in New Jersey had her account closed down last week.
The company suspended the account of a local Australian businesswoman. Liz Henderson of Brisbane, Australia said that her page which she uses to promote her maternity clothing company was suspended for violating the company’s business policies, reports an Australian news site.
But she was not told at first what her page had done to violate Facebook policies. Weeks later she received an explanation which said, “You’re not allowed to use Facebook Products to advertise because you didn’t comply with our Advertising Policies or other standards. Your personal ad account was disabled.”
