LONDON: Facebook removed almost 150 accounts and pages linked to anti-lockdown demonstrators in Germany, the company announced Thursday, under a new policy focused on groups that spread misinformation or incite violence but who don’t fit into the platform’s existing categories of bad actors.
The accounts on Facebook and Instagram spread content linked to the so-called Querdenken movement, a disparate group that has protested lockdown measures in Germany and includes vaccine and mask opponents, conspiracy theorists and some far-right extremists.
Posts from the accounts included one making the debunked claim that vaccines create viral variants and another that wished death upon police officers who broke up violent anti-lockdown protests in Berlin.
The action is the first under Facebook’s new policy focused on preventing “coordinated social harm,” which company officials said is an attempt to address content from social media users who work together to spread harmful content and evade platform rules.
Under its long-standing guidelines, Facebook has removed accounts that use false personas or spread hate speech or make threats of violence. The new policy is intended to catch groups that work together in an attempt to get around the rules, while still spreading harmful content.
In the case of the Querdenken network, Facebook said multiple account holders used both individual and duplicate accounts to spread content that violated Facebook’s rules on COVID-19 misinformation, hate speech, bullying and incitement of violence.
It was that coordinated effort to deceive, along with the harmful content and a history of past violations, that prompted Facebook’s action, according to Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy.
“Simply sharing a belief or affinity with a particular movement or group wouldn’t be enough” to warrant a similar response, he told reporters on a conference call Thursday.
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has put some Querdenker adherents under surveillance as the movement has become increasingly radicalized and its protests have attracted neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists.
Facebook bans German accounts under new ‘social harm’ policy
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Facebook bans German accounts under new ‘social harm’ policy
- Facebook removes almost 150 accounts and pages linked to anti-lockdown demonstrators in Germany under new policy to halt the spread of misinformation
UK, France mull social media bans for youth as debate rages
- Countries including France and Britain are considering following Australia’s lead by banning children and some teenagers from using social media
PARIS: Countries including France and Britain are considering following Australia’s lead by banning children and some teenagers from using social media, but experts are still locked in a debate over the effectiveness of the move.
Supporters of a ban warn that action needs to be taken to tackle deteriorating mental health among young people, but others say the evidence is inconclusive and want a more nuanced approach.
Australia last month became the first nation to prohibit people under-16s from using immensely popular and profitable social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok and YouTube.
France is currently debating bills for a similar ban for under-15s, including one championed by President Emmanuel Macron.
The Guardian reported last week that Jonathan Haidt, an American psychologist and supporter of the Australian ban, had been asked to speak to UK government officials.
Haidt argued in his bestselling 2024 book “The Anxious Generation” that too much time looking at screens — particularly social media — was rewiring children’s brains and “causing an epidemic of mental illness.”
While influential among politicians, the book has proven controversial in academic circles.
Canadian psychologist Candice Odgers wrote in a review of the book that the “scary story” Haidt was telling was “not supported by science.”
One of the main areas of disagreement has been determining exactly how much effect using social media has on young people’s mental health.
Michael Noetel, a researcher at the University of Queensland in Australia, told AFP that “small effects across billions of users add up.”
There is “plenty of evidence” that social media does harm to teens, he said, adding that some were demanding an unrealistic level of proof.
“My read is that Haidt is more right than his harshest critics admit, and less right than his book implies,” Noetel said.
Given the potential benefit of a ban, he considered it “a bet worth making.”
After reviewing the evidence, France’s public health watchdog ANSES ruled last week that social media had numerous detrimental effects for adolescents — particularly girls — while not being the sole reason for their declining mental health.
Everything in moderation?
Noetel led research published in Psychological Bulletin last year that reviewed more than 100 studies worldwide on the links between screens and the psychological and emotional problems suffered by children and adolescents.
The findings suggested a vicious cycle.
Excessive screen time — particularly using social media and playing video games — was associated with problems. This distress then drove youngsters to look at their screens even more.
However, other researchers are wary of a blanket ban.
Ben Singh from the University of Adelaide tracked more than 100,000 young Australians over three years for a study published in JAMA Pediatrics.
The study found that the young people with the worst wellbeing were those who used social media heavily — more than two hours a day — or not at all. It was teens who used social networks moderately that fared the best.
“The findings suggest that both excessive restriction and excessive use can be problematic,” Singh told AFP.
Again, girls suffered the most from excessive use. Being entirely deprived of social media was found to be most detrimental for boys in their later teens.
’Appallingly toxic’
French psychiatrist Serge Tisseron is among those who have long warned about the huge threat that screens pose to health.
“Social media is appallingly toxic,” he told AFP.
But he feared a ban would easily be overcome by tech-savvy teens, at the same time absolving parents of responsibility.
“In recent years, the debate has become extremely polarized between an outright ban or nothing at all,” he said, calling for regulation that walks a finer line.
Another option could be to wait and see how the Australian experiment pans out.
“Within a year, we should know much more about how effective the Australian social media ban has been and whether it led to any unintended consequences,” Cambridge University researcher Amy Orben said.
Last week, Australia’s online safety watchdog said that tech companies have already blocked 4.7 million accounts for under 16s.
