Facebook has put on pause its recommendations of political and social content groups to users ahead of the looming elections in the United States.
"This is a measure we put in place in the lead-up to Election Day. We will assess when to lift them afterwards, but they are temporary", Facebook spokeswoman Liz Bourgeois said in a statement obtained by media on Friday evening.
The spokeswoman also said Facebook was limiting the "save our children" hashtag from distributing on the social media platform over its connections to the QAnon conspiracy theory. In short, the theory claims that US President Donald Trump is secretly combating a network of paedophiles within the Democratic Party and American establishment.
"When people search for it, they will now see the credible child safety resources", Bourgeois said.
As he was testifying before a Senate panel called to hear testimonies from him on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg responded to a question from Democratic Senator Ed Markey, who was concerned that group recommendations on Facebook could allegedly push voters to become radicalised.
"Senator, we have taken the steps to stop recommendations in groups for all political content or social issue groups as a precaution", Zuckerberg said.
Sharing a joint industry statement from today's meeting on ongoing collaboration between tech companies and USG agencies to protect the integrity of the upcoming US election. pic.twitter.com/V6w1W58Usd
— Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) October 28, 2020
Zuckerberg also said that Facebook will take down any post by President Trump that incites violence in the aftermath of the 3 November election.
Facebook Chief Executive, along with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, was subpoenaed by US lawmakers over similar acts of censorship and restrictions on free speech.
