After fellow Silicon valley giant Twitter started adding disclaimers to Donald Trump’s tweets, Zuckerberg and Facebook have had to explain why they weren’t following suit to both insiders and outsiders.
In a first step to increase their transparency, Facebook has announced that it will begin labelling pages and posts of state-owned media. They explained that this will help the readers determine for themselves the veracity of the claims without Facebook having to make a judgment call.
The first targets of these warnings will be the media outlets such as Russia Today or Xinhua, which are run by the Russian and Chinese government, respectively. It will first be showcased to US users, then expanded for users around the world.
In an interview with CNN, Facebook security executive explained that the company had long concerns about the risks of propaganda that are promulgated via state operated outlets. He said he and his company understood the importance of telling everyone where their news is coming from.
Although the plans for this new function was announced last year, its importance and necessity has amplified dramatically since then. Attacks and opinion forming by Chinese outlets have become especially pertinent as diplomatic feuds caused by Covid-19 responsibilities rose.
Moreover, China and its media outlets have been actively using the protests stirred by the death of George Floyd to draw a comparison between the US and them. They have mocked how the US supports protests overseas in Hong Kong, but resists movements in Minneapolis and around the nation.
As an added caution, Facebook announced that it will not take advertisements from any state-operated outlets. The executive told CNN that this was an added measure as the US heads into its Presidential election later this year.
He also went onto explain that the a large group – 65 – of experts were consulted as Facebook decided which medias should be characterized as state media.
Facebook is following the trails of YouTube, which began labelling contents from state-owned media back in 2018. Twitter does not label state outlets, but said it has stopped uploading ads from them.
What are your thoughts on this decision? Share them with us in the comments below, and be sure to follow us on Facebook for more news like this one.
Replaced!