Facebook to flag all ‘newsworthy’ posts from politicians
For the last two months, Facebook and Twitter have been in the limelight for their content policy. The ruckus began when Twitter fact-checked a tweet by US President Donald Trump, while for the same post Trump shared on Facebook,it did not take any action. Later, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg criticized Twitter for the fact check. Now Facebook has said that it will flag all the posts which fall in the ‘news category’ of all the leaders including the post of President Donald Trump .
In fact, accusing Facebook of hate speeches and divisive discourse, Unilever, a European company offering brands such as Ben & Jerry’s and Dove, announced a boycott of advertisements on Facebook by the end of this year, leading to fall in Facebook’s share by over eight per cent. After this company, Coca-Cola also announced a boycott of Facebook for at least 30 days.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg refused to take action against some of Trump’s disputed posts, stating that people have the right to hear the statements of leaders. In contrast, Twitter had flagged these statements.
Facebook did not take any action on Trump’s post which Twitter had flagged, which was also criticized by Trump’s opponents and current and former employees of Facebook, but now even the posts by President Trump would be under scrutiny for content violation.
Zuckerberg announced a change in policies on his Facebook page. In it, he said, “The policies we are implementing today are aimed at addressing the challenges that our country is facing today.” It said that Facebook would also ban false claims that discouraged voting.
