As advertisers pull out, politicians' harmful posts now set to be labelled

SAN FRANCISCO: As more advertisers pull out of its platform over poor handling of hate speech and misinformation, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Saturday that the social network will put warning labels on all posts that break its rules but are deemed newsworthy.

The announcement came after several top-notch advertisers like Coca-Cola, Hershey and Honda joined over 100 brands who have decided to boycot advertising on Facebook.

Facebook's decision now opens the door to label controversial posts by US President Donald Trump. Twitter has already flagged couple of his controversial tweets while Facebook is facing widespread criticism for its inaction over Trump posts that glorified violence in the aftermath of the death of African-American George Floyd.

Zucekrberg said that they will soon start labeling some of the content we leave up because it is deemed newsworthy, so people can know when this is the case.

"We'll allow people to share this content to condemn it, just like we do with other problematic content, because this is an important part of how we discuss what's acceptable in our society — but we'll add a prompt to tell people that the content they're sharing may violate our policies," he explained.

There is no newsworthiness exemption to content that incites violence or suppresses voting.

"Even if a politician or government official says it, if we determine that content may lead to violence or deprive people of their right to vote, we will take that content down," Zuckerberg said adding that there are no exceptions for "politicians in any of the policies I'm announcing here today". (IANS) 

Also Watch: Minister in Waist Deep Flood Water in Tinsukia