The head of Facebook said this Wednesday that the platform will stop recommending militant or political groups to its usersa measure already taken a few months ago in the United States to reduce electoral tensions.
The social network, which played an important role in the Arab Spring ten years ago, Now he wants to reinvent his image by moving away from political controversies and scandals. that have marked their daily lives since the election of Donald Trump and Brexit in 2016.
“We stopped recommending militant or political groups in the United States as the elections approached, and now we intend to extend this rule to the entire world,” said Mark Zuckerberg during the presentation of the social media giant’s quarterly results. His goal is to “calm things down and discourage divisive conversations.”
In a statement issued earlier, he said he was “excited” to design in 2021 “ways to create economic opportunities, build communities and help people have fun.”
The Californian group achieved almost $86 billion in sales during the year and generated more than $29 billion in profits, up 58% despite the pandemic, a brand boycott last summer and significant tensions with civil society, officials elected officials and authorities.
Facebook has faced all this by multiplying measures to better moderate content and stop misinformation, without managing to satisfy many anti-racist organizations or organizations dedicated to the defense of rights and freedoms in general.
“In September, we announced that we had removed more than a million groups in one year,” Zuckerberg recalled. “But there are also a lot of groups that we don’t want to encourage people to join even if they don’t break our rules.”
The founder of the social network added that his teams are also looking for ways to reduce the visibility of political content on the user’s wall. “Of course, it will always be possible to participate in political discussions and groups, for whoever wants to,” said the billionaire. “One of the main comments from our community right now is that people don’t want politics and discussions to take priority over everything else when using our services,” he concluded.