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Facebook, in a blog post on Wednesday, announced that it will be cracking down on Facebook groups to keep harmful content at bay. The social media giant has confirmed that it will restrict the reach of groups that contain harmful or potentially harmful contents.

It will also take down groups who repeatedly make such offences. Besides, Facebook will also apply these rules to group members.

Restrictions on groups

Facebook will limit invite notifications of groups, who have violated its community standards by limiting invite notifications. By doing so, people are less likely to join these groups, the company believes.

In a blog post, Facebook said, “For existing members, we’ll reduce the distribution of that group’s content so that it’s shown lower in News Feed. We think these measures, as a whole, along with demoting groups in recommendations, will make it harder to discover and engage with groups that break our rules.”

If a group has a substantial number of members who have violated Facebook’s policies or were part of other groups that were removed for breaking its rules, it will require admins and moderators to temporarily approve all posts, it said.

“This means that content won’t be shown to the wider group until an admin or moderator reviews and approves it. If an admin or moderator repeatedly approves content that breaks our rules, we’ll take the entire group down,” Facebook added.

Restrictions on individuals

Facebook will inform users when they want to join such groups about community violations so they can make a more informed decision before joining.

Besides, when someone has made repeated violations in groups, Facebook will block them from posting or commenting for some time in any group.

Such group members will not be able to invite others to any groups. In fact, they will be restricted from the ability to create new groups. Facebook adds that these measures will help slow down the reach of those looking to the platform for harmful purposes.