Facebook continues to be the digital embodiment of too little, too late.
With violent pro-Trump extremists in control of the U.S. Capitol building Wednesday, Donald Trump posted a video to Facebook saying the election “was stolen” and “fraudulent.” Facebook belatedly removed the video later that afternoon, but not before approximately 80 brutal minutes of facilitating the spread of Donald Trump’s lies.
Guy Rosen, Facebook’s so-called vice president of integrity, explained the company’s decision to finally do the bare minimum.
“This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump’s video,” he wrote. “We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.”
This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump’s video. We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.
— Guy Rosen (@guyro) January 6, 2021
The video, which was hidden on Twitter after Facebook removed it, made repeated false claims about the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
“We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it,” Trump falsely claims in the video. “This was a fraudulent election.”
Facebook, of course, has a long history of spreading Trump’s dangerous lies. While the company slaps labels on many of the president’s posts, BuzzFeed News reported in November that Facebook knows those labels have little to no effect when it comes to the posts’ spread.
We reached out to Facebook to ask why Wednesday’s Trump video was left up on the platform for as long as it was. We received no immediate response.
New York Times reporter Mike Isaac noted that Facebook also removed a second post from Trump. That post spoke of a “sacred landslide election victory,” among other seemingly unhinged comments. Twitter removed the same post.
If we didn’t have scores of examples to the contrary, we might go so far as to say that Facebook is learning from its past mistakes.