Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
As of Thursday morning, a huge Facebook group called “Stop the Steal” was organizing rallies and fundraising to challenge election results across the US. The group accumulated more than 300,000 members in the less than 48 hours it existed before Facebook removed it on Thursday afternoon.
“In line with the exceptional measures that we are taking during this period of heightened tension, we have removed the Group ‘Stop the Steal’ which was creating real-world events,” a Facebook company spokesperson said in a statement. “The group was organized around the delegitimization of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from members of the group.”