The Wall Street Journal: ‘We’ve been fueling this fire for a long time’: inside Facebook’s abrupt shift on Trump

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As footage of a pro-Trump mob ransacking the U.S. Capitol streamed from Washington, D.C., last Wednesday, Facebook Inc.’s data scientists and executives saw warning signs of further trouble.

User reports of violent content jumped more than tenfold from the morning, according to documents viewed by the Wall Street Journal. A tracker for user reports of false news surged to nearly 40,000 reports an hour, about four times recent daily peaks. On Instagram, the company’s popular photo-sharing platform, views skyrocketed for content from authors in “zero trust” countries, reflecting potential efforts at platform manipulation by entities overseas.