Facebook would like to stop “Stop the Steal,” this time for real.
In a statement posted on Monday, the company announced that in preparation for Inauguration Day, it would take down any posts on Facebook or Instagram that use the phrase “stop the steal.”
The company says it will “take some time” to fully roll out this new policy.
Facebook said it’s taking action under its Coordinating Harm policy, which states: “In an effort to prevent and disrupt offline harm and copycat behavior, we prohibit people from facilitating, organizing, promoting, or admitting to certain criminal or harmful activities targeted at people, businesses, property or animals.”
However, this isn’t the first time Facebook attempted to block “Stop the Steal” on its platform.
Two days after the election in November, Facebook announced that it would “temporarily” hide searches for #StopTheSteal and #SharpieGate due to the overwhelming amount of election misinformation spreading on the site.
Searching for those terms now, it appears searches for #SharpieGate are still being blocked. However, searches for #StopTheSteal once again surface content with the hashtag.
Here’s how Facebook looked before when searching the hashtag #StopTheSteal on November 5, 2020:
And here’s what it looks like now:
took down the original “Stop the Steal” group for breaking its policies and spreading conspiracy theories.
It didn’t take long for other “Stop the Steal” groups to pop up, although the company says it continues to monitor these related groups and pages for policy violations.
Mashable has reached out to Facebook for comment and will update this post when we hear back.