Facbook declares new penalties for group members

Facbook has declared new penalties for group members. They include new penalties for group members who repeatedly violate its rules, and new control options for group administrators to monitor potentially harmful content in the group.
The social networking site will impose new influence penalties on group members who previously posted violations of Facebook rules anywhere on the platform, restricting their ability to spread misinformation or hate speech across the board.
This is important because private groups in particular are still problematic as they are not subject to public scrutiny. This means that people can share potentially harmful content among peers in communities that are more open to such content, thereby reducing the scope for punishment. This change will further limit their ability to spread such content outside of their own group.
The new options come as Facebook faces more questions over its moderation decisions, in the wake of The Wall Street Journal’s ‘Facebook Files’ expose. With the platform’s motivations being questioned, and new evidence showing that its systems can cause significant harm, it’s important for Facebook to provide more tools to help address such concerns, both from a PR and a broader health perspective.
Facebook does invest a lot of money in this type of work, and it is constantly looking for improvements; this is not a knee-jerk reaction to solving these new problems. But as the pressure increases, it will be required to provide more such tools and gain insight into the actual impact of such efforts on the use of the platform.