Facebook will treat coordinated rule breakers using real accounts like troll farms

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge

Facebook is expanding its playbook for tackling “coordinated inauthentic behavior” to cover similar campaigns that don’t involve impersonation. Reuters first reported the new policy, which Facebook apparently says is in its early stages. Practically speaking, it means moderators can take broader actions than banning individual accounts or posts when they break hard rules, aiming to stop coordinated attempts to harass users or get them banned.

As Reuters points out, Facebook acknowledged in January that its coordinated inauthentic behavior (or CIB) rules had limits. “We have little policy around coordinated authentic harm,” an internal report published by BuzzFeedadmitted, referring to the Stop the Steal campaign to overturn the US...