In this day and age fake news or biased information has become a major problem. With more and more people turning to the internet for information, being misinformed has never been easier.
One of the loudest voices against 'fake news' is that of President Trump -- the phrase having been featured hundreds of times in his tweets. Incidentally, Trump has faced backlash recently for several incendiary tweets and posts, including a rather controversial warning that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts". He was talking in the context of incidents of violence and looting that had cropped up amid the protests over George Floyd's death.
But while Twitter opted to censor the Presidents words after a fashion, Facebook had chosen to stay away from the issue and even defend it, facing criticism in the process.
But while the President's tweets comments remain un-screened, Facebook appears to have taken a few steps towards curbing the fake news issue. On Thursday, the company announced that it had now begun labelling 'state-controlled media' on Facebook.
While this was a plan that had been announced some time ago, Facebook's Head of Cybersecurity Policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, wrote in a post that it was now being implemented. This will label "media outlets that are wholly or partially under the editorial control of their government".
"We’re providing greater transparency into these publishers because they combine the influence of a media organization with the strategic backing of a state, and 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 post added.
As per Gleicher, the labels will appear in the 'Ad Library Page' view, on Pages, and in the Page Transparency section.
The new rules mean that media outlets, including Russia-based Sputnik, Iran's Press TV and China's Xinhua would be labelled.
On Friday, China slammed Facebook for its decision, arguing that social media firms should not selectively choose media agencies and block those.
(With inputs from IANS)
