The social media giant said in a blog that it will increase the application of the phrase because it was used by those who participated in last week’s riots at the United States Capitol.
“With ongoing attempts to organize events against the outcome of the U.S. presidential election that can lead to violence, and the use of the term by those involved in Wednesday’s violence in DC, we are taking another step in preparing for inauguration,” Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of integrity, wrote in a post about preparing the company for inauguration day.
On election day, the slogan “stop the theft” quickly became a rallying cry among supporters of President Donald Trump, many of whom were instigated by Trump himself and his allies with false allegations of electoral fraud. As a hashtag, its origins go back years, according to Facebook’s CrowdTangle analytics tool, but it has become very popular in recent months as a meeting place for conspiracy theories about the outcome of the election.
The blog post comes at a time when technology companies face growing skepticism about whether they did too little or too late to avoid the violence that swept over Capitol – and that remains a risk in the hands of President-elect Joe Biden the next week.