Tech giant Facebook has begun labeling posts by state-controlled media on its platform to notify users. These labels will be placed on the Ad Library Page view, on Pages, in the News Feed and also in the Page Transparency section.
“We want to help people better understand who’s behind the news they see on Facebook,” the company said in a blog post.
This follows the initial announcement of the move last year in October. At the time of debut, Facebook said they will be able to label media outlets that are “wholly or partially” under the editorial control of their government.
“we believe people should know if the news they read is coming from a publication that may be under the influence of a government,” says Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s Head of Cybersecurity Policy.
The company plans to expand its reach on this ground later by starting to label ads from such publications.
Facebook says it will begin with few media outlets then add more to the list as time passes by. To label a media publisher as “state-controlled” one, Facebook considers both financial control or ownership, plus an assessment of editorial control exerted by a government.
On the whole, this is the basis of the determination. However, Facebook says they have come up with policy criteria which determines whether a media company is controlled wholly or partially by the government on the editorial front.
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