‘NJ Women for Trump’ Facebook page back after ‘enforcement error’

The New Jersey Women For Trump Facebook group, a private group that disappeared from Facebook on Saturday, is now back on the platform after attention from President Donald Trump.

The president took note of an NJ.com story about the group's disappearance in a tweet Sunday just after midnight. "Facebook put them back NOW!" the president wrote.

In a message at 10:41 a.m. Trump said the group's page was being restored immediately and Facebook said they made an "enforcement error."

A spokesman for Facebook in an email told New Jersey 101.5 that "this group was removed in error and we have since restored it." Facebook would not say what brought attention to the group in the first place.

Priscilla Confrey, the group’s co-founder, told NJ.com that she was never notified by Facebook the group had been removed. Confrey on Sunday told NJ.com that while the page was restored she could not approve new members.

Facebook on its website says it has "community standards" that apply to both public and private groups, which are monitored with the help of artificial intelligence.

"If admins or moderators repeatedly post or approve content that breaks our rules, we take down the whole group," Facebook wrote.

"Over the last year, we removed about 1.5 million pieces of content in groups for violating our policies on organized hate, 91% of which we found proactively. We also removed about 12 million pieces of content in groups for violating our policies on hate speech, 87% of which we found proactively," Facebook said.

Facebook and other social media platforms have tried to crack down on posts they say contain misinformation — sometimes labeling posts as such, sometimes removing them altogether — leading to accusations of censorship by Republicans. The group also did not allow political ads in the seven days leading up to Election Day.

Confrey told NJ.com several posts in recent weeks had warning labels placed on them by Facebook, which she said she simply removed.

Confre had not yet responded to New Jersey 101.5's request for more information by Monday afternoon.

Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNJ