Facebook Groups are spaces within the social network where users connect with others to share common interests, but they are not always used in the proper way, so Facebook continues to take action in the matter by establishing new rules that allow the participation of users within the established Community Standards.
In this regard, the company has just presented the new rules that will be applied from now on, aiming to reduce the dissemination of harmful and erroneous information, in addition to cleaning up groups due to lack of administrators, among other aspects.
Expanding recidivism policies
On the one hand, they will expand their existing recidivism policy by adding that administrators and moderators who have participated in groups that have had to be eliminated for violations of the rules cannot create new groups for a certain period of time.
For members of groups that have some infractions of the rules now their publications must wait up to 30 days to be approved by moderators and administrations at any time during that period before they reach the other members.
If moderators and administrators repeatedly approve publications that violate their community norms, the group they belong to will be eliminated.
The groups have an active administrator
On the other hand, Facebook will promote that there is at least one administrator active per group, so that it can carry out the necessary order and prevent violations of rules and policies among its members.
So from now on they will make suggestions to acquire the role of administrator to interested members, taking into account a series of variables about them. In addition, in the coming weeks they will archive those groups that have not had any administrator for a while. At a later stage, the only trustee of a group who decides to resign will have the ability to invite members to take office. If anyone agrees, the group will be archived.
Health group recommendations will disappear
Since health is not at stake, Facebook understands that users have to access health information through authorized sources, so it will stop recommending health-related groups, although users may continue to search for them or invite other members from these groups to participate.
Fighting violence-related groups
In addition to eliminating a network of anti-government groups established in the United States and expanding their policies to address organizations and movements that may generate law enforcement concerns, will now limit the exposure of these groups by «removing them from the recommendations, restricting them from the search and soon reducing their content in News Feed».
And it goes further, because they will also eliminate groups that share contents of potential violence, «even if they use veiled language and symbols.»
Combating disinformation in groups
And finally, to combat disinformation in groups, Facebook adopts the «eliminate, reduce, inform» approach in which they will eliminate groups that violate their community rules, reduce the exposure of groups sharing erroneous information, taking into account the classification of false by data verifiers, and label users when faced with misinformation, being warned before sharing their contents.
