05 June 2020 - Facebook labels state-controlled media posts but allows Trump's online threats of violence
Facebook will start labeling pages and posts from state-controlled media
Hadas Gold (CNN Business, 04/06/2020)
Facebook will start labeling the pages, posts and advertisements of state-controlled media outlets, the company announced Thursday.
The labels will immediately start appearing on pages belonging to outlets such as state-run Russia Today and China's Xinhua. Starting next week, users in the United States will start to see the label appear on these outlets' individual posts — labels that will eventually be introduced in other countries.
Facebook starts adding labels to 'state-controlled media' and will ban them from running ads in the US ahead of the 2020 election
Tyler Sonnemaker (Business Insider, 04/06/2020)
Facebook has started to apply labels to state-run media outlets — news publishers it deems "wholly or partially under the editorial control of their government" — the company said in a blog post Thursday.
"We believe people should know if the news they read is coming from a publication that may be under the influence of a government," the company said, "because they combine the influence of a media organization with the strategic backing of a state."
Mark Zuckerberg defends decision to allow Trump to threaten violence on Facebook
Julia Carrie Wong (The Guardian, 03/06/2020)
Mark Zuckerberg is standing by his decision to allow Donald Trump to threaten violence against George Floyd protesters on the platform despite harsh criticism from civil rights leaders and public dissent from his own employees, including a public resignation.
In a video conference with staff on Tuesday, Zuckerberg said that his decision to not remove Trump’s warning on social media on Friday that “when the looting starts the shooting start” was “tough” but “pretty thorough”, the New York Times reported. The company usually holds an all-staff meeting on Thursdays, but the session was moved up to address growing discontent among employees, hundreds of whom staged a “walkout” on Monday by requesting time off.
Facebook and Twitter Must Do More About Trump’s Tweets
Greg Bensinger (The New York Times, 01/06/2020)
While Twitter and Facebook dithered over whether to append warning labels on outrageous and dangerous posts from Donald Trump, the president continued to tweet and post.
Twitter took the plunge last week with a fact-checking link on two misleading and false tweets about mail-in voting and, later, an admonition that the president’s tweet warning protesters that they risked being shot had violated its rules. Rather than blunt the president’s message, the effect of Twitter’s knuckle-rapping has been to draw even more attention to it.