Facebook will eliminate posts from protests against "Stay Home" measures in the United States

The restrictions imposed in the United States due to COVID-19 have not appealed to all citizens and street protests have increased. To address this situation, Facebook will remove publications that promote demonstrations against social confinement in California, New Jersey and Nebraska, states where such events are prohibited. The decision comes after the social network has released a map with the results of the surveys on the symptoms of COVID-19.

The news was advanced by CNN Monday, to whom social network representative Andy Stone explained Facebook's strategy. Publications created in the event tab that promote protests in the three US states will be eliminated, but the same power will not happen in other cases. Other posts, including from social media groups about the demonstrations, may not be eliminated.

"Unless the government proves this type of event during that period, we will allow it to be organized on Facebook," explained Andy Stone. "For that same reason, protests that challenge the government's orientation on social distance will be banned."

Still, it seems that the issue is not very clear between Facebook and the three states. Alyana Alfaro Post, a representative of the State of New Jersey, assured the website that "Facebook was not asked to eliminate pages or publications of events that promote protests around social confinement". In the case of the State of Nebraska, the government guarantees that it is not aware of protests or that it has asked for a social network to eliminate pages from events.

Facebook is now trying to get answers from other state governments, from Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. The objective is to find out if these protests are also prohibited in these states, in line with the guidelines for social distance.

Facebook committed to helping researchers fight COVID-19

With the help of Facebook and Google, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are analyzing the pandemic in the United States and hope to anticipate COVID-19's activity soon with an anticipation period of several weeks. Some of the first results of online surveys are now available and reveal, for example, that in some New York City suburbs, about 2% to 3% of people are experiencing symptoms similar to those caused by the disease.

The information was released by Mark Zuckerberg in an opinion piece from the Washington Post, where he ensures that he wants inquiries to be launched worldwide. The first Facebook map with aggregated results is now available, showing regions where people are experiencing more and less symptoms similar to those of COVID-19. The aim is that the information is regularly updated.