Facebook has announced that it is banning events that take
place “in close proximity” to the White House, the US Capitol building, or any
state capitol buildings through Inauguration Day. The policy is part of the
Inauguration Day preparations that the company had earlier announced in an
attempt to prevent its platform from being used to organize any violent event,
such as the January 6th attack on the US Capitol.
Moreover, Facebook is doing a secondary review of all events related to inauguration day and will be removing programs that violate the platform’s policies. It will also be blocking pages and accounts based outside the US from creating events located in the US – a policy that the company first introduced for the US presidential elections.
Facebook is taking these actions as a result of being scrutinized
for allowing posts promoting and organizing the January 6th attack, and also for
running ads that promoted military equipment, alongside content that contained
election misinformation and encouraged violence.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg responded to the claims, saying
“the riots were organized on platforms that don’t have our abilities to stop
hate.” However, the company still made sure to level up its policy enforcement
ahead of inauguration day.
Facebook has also made it clear for accounts that repeatedly
violate its policies that they could be restricted from engaging in various
activities on the platform like creating live videos, events, groups, or pages.
