Nonprofit: 267 Facebook pages, groups spread material glorifying violence ahead of election

A nonprofit found that 267 Facebook pages and groups spread material glorifying violence ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

Avaaz, a group focused on misinformation, said in a report on March 18 that it found “267 pages and groups – in addition to ‘Stop the Steal’ groups – with a combined following of 32 million, spreading violence-glorifying content in the heat of the 2020 election.”

They believe that 118 of those groups had “clear violations” of Facebook’s policies.

Facebook responded to the report saying that of the 118 pages that Avaaz believes clearly violated the social media giant’s policies, only 18 groups actually had clear policy violations, The Associated Press reported.

The report also found that 91 million registered voters saw misinformation about voter fraud in October before the election and that false stories were more popular in 2020 than 2019.

The nonprofit accused Facebook of not being as vigilant with misinformation as it was before the election, and says QAnon groups are thriving on the social media platform.

Facebook said Avaaz is undermining all the work the platform has done to curb misinformation, although it acknowledged that its policy enforcement “isn’t perfect.”

Facebook said on Tuesday that the company took down 1.3 billion posts from fake accounts between October and December 2020.

Facebook has taken down the 18 accounts it determined broke its rules from the Avaaz report, according to The Associated Press. 

The Hill has reached out to Facebook for comment.