National File has exclusively obtained comment from Facebook representatives who say that the platform will now ban conservative groups and pages if they are look similar to other groups and pages that they have banned for violating their Community Standards.
In the days before the election, National File reported that the once-massive Facebook page, God Emperor Trump, was unceremoniously banned from the platform for the 7th time. While communicating with Facebook Politics and Government Outreach Associate Danielle Cyr, at the direction of Facebook Public Policy Director for Global Elections Katie Harbath, National File was informed of this new policy.
When asked if the God Emperor Trump Facebook page actually violated any of the platform’s Community Standards, Cyr acknowledged that the page did not, and provided a link to Facebook’s updated Community Guidelines, which state:
We’ve long prohibited people from creating new Pages that look similar to those we’ve previously removed for violating our Community Standards. In early 2019, we updated our recidivism enforcement to prevent those who have had Pages removed for violating our Community Standards from using duplicate Pages to continue the same activity.
According to our updated recidivism policy, when we remove a Page for violating our policies, we may remove other Pages and Groups even if that specific Page has not met the threshold to be unpublished on its own. This is determined by looking at a broad set of information, including whether the Page has the same people administering it or has a similar name to the one we’re removing.
Cyr then added additional context to the ban, explaining that “Your page was removed according to these policies and will not be reinstated. Additional similar looking pages and groups can also be removed,” emphasis added by National File.
When National File noted that most posts to the page were simply articles or popular pro-Trump memes, and asked whether this means all pro-Trump Facebook pages and their administrators may be banned from the platform due to this policy, we did not receive a response.
Big tech titans of industry are currently testifying before Congress to determine how they may have interfered in the 2020 election, with Zuckerberg claiming the platform’s post-election censorship of Republicans was an effort to curb political violence.
