The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has responded to users who had threatened to boycott over the fact people are allowed to spread hate speech on Facebook and especially political ones.
Facebook has said it will flag posts from “newsworthy” politicians that break its rules, including those from US President Donald Trump.
The CEO had previously shown reluctance to take action against Donald Trump, saying people should be able to read or watch statements from political leaders without them being filtered.
Zuckerberg said he was taking action to assist in keeping everyone safe and informed and that he was providing a platform for them to air their views but he now also advocated for voting for real change.
He said in a post, “The policies we’re implementing today are designed to address the reality of the challenges our country is facing and how they’re showing up across our community.”
What will you not be allowed to post?
Mr Zuckerberg said the new rules would not mean “newsworthy” posts that violate its regulations would be taken down, as “seeing speech from politicians is in the public interest”. Meaning one will not be allowed to spread hate speech on Facebook without a warning.
He added that they will soon start labelling some of the content they leave up because it is deemed newsworthy, so people can know when this is the case.
The site will allow people to share this content to condemn it, just like with other problematic content but add a prompt to tell people that the content they’re sharing may violate their policies.
He also added that they would be expanding their policies to better protect immigrants, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. In the past, some of the content shared does more harm than good.
Source: Facebook