The Facebook application on a smartphone (illustration).

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Jenny Kane / AP / SIPA

Facebook wants to "calm things down and discourage divisive conversations."

Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday that the platform would no longer recommend activist or political groups to its users, a measure already taken in the United States this fall to curb election tensions.

The social network, which played a major role in the Arab Spring ten years ago, now wants to reinvent its image far from the controversies and political scandals that have punctuated its daily life since the election of Donald Trump and Brexit in 2016.

"Helping people to just have fun"

"We have stopped recommending militant or political groups in the United States, as the elections approach, and we now intend to extend this rule to the whole world," said the boss of Facebook during the presentation. quarterly results of the social media giant.

In the statement released earlier, he said he was "excited" to design, in 2021, "ways to create economic opportunities, build communities and help people just have fun."

29 billion in profits despite the pandemic

The Californian group achieved nearly $ 86 billion in sales over the year, and generated more than 29 billion in profits, up 58%, despite the pandemic, a boycott of brands this summer and significant tensions with civil society, elected officials and authorities.

Facebook has faced this by stepping up measures to better moderate content and curb disinformation, without succeeding in satisfying many anti-racist organizations or the defense of rights and freedoms in general.

A million groups withdrawn in one year

"In September, we announced that we had withdrawn over a million bands in one year," Zuckerberg said.

But there are also a lot of groups that we don't want to encourage people to join, even if they don't break our rules.

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The founder of the platform giant added that his teams are also looking for ways to reduce the visibility of political content on the central user thread.

"Of course, it will always be possible to participate in discussions and political groups, for those who wish," said the billionaire.

“One of the main feedback from our community at the moment is that people don't want politics and struggles to take precedence over the rest when they use our services,” he said.

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