Facebook cracks down on fake news publishers with harsher punishments for bad pages

Facebook has announced changes to how it handles and communicates violations of its policies around the publishing of fake news and misinformation, with the goal of preventing publishers that operate large networks of pages and groups from skirting bans. Starting Jan 23, Facebook says it will reserve the right to take down pages and groups that are simply affiliated with those that have violated the company’s community standards, even if those pages or groups haven’t technically broken any rules. Facebook says this is specifically to prevent users from using an adjacent or other existing page and group as a replacement once another has been flagged and taken down. While it appears the change is focused on preventing people from continuing to peddle fake or purposefully inflammatory content, it also applies to violations of Facebook’s rules on spam and clickbait, copyright-infringing material, hate speech, graphic violence, harassment and bullying, and nudity.