Facebook Cracks Down On Anti-COVID Accounts In Germany

Facebook removed nearly 150 anti-COVID-related accounts and pages in Germany. (photo: unsplash)

JAKARTA - Facebook removed nearly 150 anti-COVID-related accounts and pages in Germany, causing harm on and off its platform.

The move comes as Facebook is implementing a new policy that focuses on groups spreading misinformation or inciting violence.

In a related change, Facebook's security team expanded the tactics used to remove influence operations using fake accounts to perform more coordinated group access blocking of real user accounts causing harm.

Citing Reuters on Friday, September 17, accounts on Facebook and Instagram shared content related to the so-called Querdenken movement, a different group protesting Germany's lockdown measures and including opponents of vaccines and masks, conspiracy theorists and some wing extremists. right.

Posts from the account include making debunked claims that vaccines create variants of the virus and others wishing death to police officers who dispersed violent anti-lockdown protests in Berlin. Facebook has also been working for several months to use its tactics against coordinated social breakdown.

Some account holders use individual accounts and duplicate accounts to spread content that violates Facebook's rules on COVID-19 misinformation, hate speech, intimidation, and incitement.

According to Facebook's head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, as quoted from APNews the company prevents coordinated attempts to defraud, along with malicious content and a history of past violations, "Simply sharing beliefs or affinities with certain movements or groups will not be enough," he said.

Germany's domestic intelligence agency has put some of Querdenker's followers under scrutiny as the movement has become increasingly radical and its protests have attracted neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists.