Facebook blocking events near the White House, Capitol, state houses

Facebook said on Friday that it will block the creation of new Facebook events that take place near the White House, the US Capitol and state capitol buildings through the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on January 20.

In an updated blog post on Friday, the company said the move was aimed at preventing people from using its platform to incite violence. It is also blocking accounts and pages located outside the US from creating events in the country.

Facebook said it is also restricting other resources for people in the U.S. based on certain signs, such as repeated violations of its policies. The company said it could block these accounts from creating live video or creating an event, group or page. He said he can add additional measures as needed.

Earlier this week, Facebook announced that it would remove content containing the phrase “stop stealing” from its services before the inauguration. Facebook had previously removed a “Stop the Steal” group from its services in November and several other related groups and pages since then, but the company said it was taking that additional step after the US Capitol insurrection last week.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, also said last week that the US Capitol insurrection was not “widely” organized on the company’s social media services. But there were still many groups that were able to post on Facebook about the attack on the Capitol building before last week’s riot, CNBC reported earlier.

Last week, Facebook blocked Trump from posting at least the rest of his term.