Facebook takes action

Facebook on Thursday announced that it was implementing a new policy targeting “coordinated social harm” campaigns.

Facebook’s head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, wrote in a blog post that the company was taking steps to crack down on “networks of primarily authentic users who organize to systematically violate our policies to cause harm on or off our platform.”

The campaigns are separate from individuals who post on their own social media. They’re also different from efforts launched by “inauthentic users” where it is not immediately clear who is running the social media page or account.

Facebook said it will now start disabling accounts and pages suspected of engaging in the activity. It will also take steps to reduce the reach of a campaign’s content.

“Over the past several months, we have been working with teams across Facebook to expand our network disruption efforts so we can address threats that come from groups of authentic accounts coordinating on our platform to cause social harm,” Gleicher wrote.