Facebook blocks live events around US Capitol on Jan 20

San Francisco: As President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris prepare to be sworn into office during the 59th presidential inauguration on January 20, Facebook has announced to block the creation of any new live events in close proximity to the White House, the US Capitol building and any of the state capitol buildings.

In an update, Facebook said its teams are conducting a secondary review of all Facebook events related to the inauguration and removing ones that violate our policies.

 

“As we did in the lead up to and following the US presidential election, we are continuing to block event creation in the US by non-US based accounts and Pages,” the company announced late on Friday.

Facebook is also restricting some features for people in the US based on signals such as repeat violations of its policies.

These restrictions include blocking these accounts from creating live videos or creating an event, Group or Page.

On Twitter, the user will be able to watch the inauguration ceremony and the coverage surrounding it via live streams from multiple news outlets and official inauguration



feeds.

“As we did in 2017, Twitter is actively working with the US government to support the archival and transition of Twitter accounts across administrations,” the company said.

As President-elect Biden is sworn in on January 20, 2021, Twitter will facilitate the transfer of institutional White House Twitter accounts, including: @WhiteHouse, @POTUS, @VP, @FLOTUS, and @PressSec.

First, Twitter will transfer current institutional accounts to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) where the Tweets and account history will remain publicly available and the account usernames will be updated to reflect their archived status.

“Once this archival process is completed, Twitter will transfer the institutional accounts to the Biden administration to assume ownership, along with a new account: @SecondGentleman,” it informed.

People on Twitter who previously followed institutional White House Twitter accounts, or who currently follow relevant Biden or Harris Twitter accounts, will receive in-app alerts and other prompts that will notify them about the archival process.