Facebook Boots Anti-Vax Group Under New 'Social Harm' Rules

In a move that will crack down on some of the most extreme and well-organized extremist groups, Facebook’s security team said Thursday that it will more aggressively go after groups that engage in “Coordinated Social Harm”—a term aimed at online clubs that are evading the company’s existing rules while engaged in threatening offline behavior.

Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy, outlined a three-part test in a phone call with reporters to define what qualifies as coordinated social harm under the new enforcement regimen. First, groups must “have a systemic history of violations on our platform,” are “tightly coordinated on our platform working together to either evade our enforcement or maintain their persistence on our platform,” and are contributing to or driving significant social harm.”

Examples of the kinds of “significant social harm” that could violate the policy, according to Gleicher, include “accelerating violence or undermining trust in critical medical understanding or could include presenting violence as a legitimate response to address government programs.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.