New York (CNN Business)January 6 was a clear turning point for major social media companies — proving that they would, under certain circumstances, be willing to deplatform a sitting US president. But some experts worry that they still haven’t done enough to address the underlying issues that allowed Trump supporters and others on the far-right to be misled and radicalized, and to get organized using their platforms.
Ahead of the one-year anniversary Facebook-parent company Meta, Twitter and YouTube say they have been monitoring their platforms for harmful content related to the Capitol riot.
“We have strong policies that we continue to enforce, including a ban on hate organizations and removing content that praises or supports them,” a Meta spokesperson told CNN, adding that the company has been in contact with law enforcement agencies including the FBI and Capitol Police around the anniversary. As part of its efforts, Facebook is proactively monitoring for content praising the Capitol riot, as well as content calling for people to carry or use weapons in Washington DC, according to the company.
“We’re continuing to actively monitor threats on our platform and will respond accordingly,” the Meta spokesperson said.
Twitter convened an internal working group with members from various parts of the company to ensure the platform could enforce its rules and protect users around the one-year mark of January 6, a Twitter spokesperson told CNN.
“Our approach both before and after January 6 [2020] has been to take strong enforcement action against accounts and Tweets that incite violence or have the potential to lead to offline harm,” said the spokesperson, adding Twitter also has open lines of communication with federal officials and law enforcement.
YouTube’s Intelligence Desk, a group tasked with proactively finding and moderating problematic content, has been monitoring trends around content and behavior related to the Capitol riot and its anniversary. As of Wednesday, the company had not detected an increase in content containing new conspiracies related to January 6 or the 2020 election that violates its policies, according to spokesperson Ivy Choi.
“Our systems are actively pointing to high authority channels and limiting the spread of harmful misinformation for election-related topics,” Choi said in a statement.
These efforts come after Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR), YouTube (GOOGL) and other platforms have faced intense criticism over the past year for social media’s role in the crisis. The companies, meanwhile, have largely argued that they had strong policies in place even before the Capitol riot and have only strengthened protections and enforcement since.
