Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Friday the popular social media platform will be taking additional steps to guarantee Americans are well informed ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
In his own Facebook post, Zuckerberg revealed a new policy surrounding “newsworthy” content that would otherwise violate the platform’s policies.
According to Zuckerberg, if the public interest value of the content outweighs the risk of harm, Facebook will leave the content up.
“We 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,” Zuckerberg said.
He added, “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.”
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10112048980882521
Zuckerberg went on to explain politicians are not exempt from the rule if they post content that may lead to violence or deprive Americans of their right to vote.
He discussed additional policies put forth by the platform including providing authoritative information on how and when Americans can vote during the pandemic, taking additional steps to fight voter suppression, and investing in prohibiting hateful content in ads.
Zuckerberg reiterated he is adamant about providing a space for users to voice their opinions while standing against hateful content.
“I’m committed to making sure Facebook remains a place where people can use their voice to discuss important issues, because I believe we can make more progress when we hear each other,” Zuckerberg said.
He continued, “But I also stand against hate, or anything that incites violence or suppresses voting, and we’re committed to removing that no matter where it comes from.”
Twitter has also taken steps to flag content that has violated the company’s policies.
On Tuesday, the social media platform added an advisory to President Donald Trump’s tweet after he issued a warning to protesters, as IJR previously reported.