Facebook has determined that event pages for organizing rallies to protest stay-at-home orders violate the platform’s guidelines and will be deleted unless social distancing guidelines are observed at the events.
Residents in at least 20 states have taken to the streets to protest their governors’ stay-at-home orders, arguing that the country should start to reopen and recover from the economic strain that has resulted from stringent social distancing measures meant to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Without advocating for attendees to follow relevant health guidelines, the platform said that planning such events is prohibited because they would be in defiance of recommendations from any “relevant government” on how to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
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“Unless government prohibits the event during this time, we allow it to be organized on Facebook,” a Facebook spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “For this same reason, events that defy government’s guidance on social distancing aren’t allowed on Facebook.”
The Facebook spokesperson added that the platform reviews content for any protest to make a determination and that state officials can also contact the platform about whether the guidelines were followed.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the issue during a Monday interview on ABC’s Good Morning America.
“We do classify that as harmful misinformation, and we take that down,” Zuckerberg said. “At the same time, you know, it’s important that people can debate policies, so there’s a line on this. But, you know, more than normal political discourse, I think a lot of the stuff that people are saying that is false around a health emergency like this can be classified as harmful misinformation.”
The platform has taken additional steps to monitor COVID-19 virus content, including limiting misinformation about the virus and disallowing ads intended to create panic or imply that certain products guarantee a cure or prevent people from contracting the coronavirus.
