Facebook totally blew its own ‘we banned the bad guys’ PR stunt
And Laura Loomer, a far-right activist, told her Instagram fans to join her channel on messaging app Telegram. Meanwhile, Alex Jones was broadcasting live through Facebook an hour after the announcement to talk about that announcement. There's nothing unusual about media outlets agreeing to be pre-briefed on important news under "embargo": Tech companies regularly make use of embargoes to coordinate coverage for product launches and the like. (Business Insider often agrees to embargoes from Facebook about news, though we weren't given a heads up on this story.) But these pre-briefings typically involve the launch of new products or business initiatives, not enforcement actions.Read the full report by Rob Price at Business Insider.
Thursday's incident raises the question of why, if Facebook believed the targeted figures were promoting "hate and violence," it took the time to organize a public relations opportunity around the bans - rather than taking action immediately. On previous enforcement actions, Facebook hasn't made advance announcements or briefed journalists - it has just taken action. For example, when it banned far-right group the Proud Boys last year, it didn't say anything about it until Business Insider noticed the bans coming into effect and reached out to its press team for comment. And in this instance, by timing the embargo for before many of the bans came into effect, Facebook gave the toxic figures it was targeting time to respond and try to mitigate the damage.
Curious if this means Facebook will take action against users who share the Alex Jones interview with Trump. https://t.co/Y1E9QoNL65 — Andrew Blake (@apblake) May 2, 2019
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