Facebook To Start Labelling Pages, Posts From State-Controlled Media

For more transparency, Facebook will now start labelling pages and posts from state-controlled media so that users are aware as to who owns and runs these outlets, the social media giant announced on Thursday. These labels will start appearing on the Facebook pages of Russia Today and China's Xinhua.

Nathan Gleicher, head of cybersecurity policy at Facebook, wrote on Thursday in blog post, “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 feature will be seen on the News Feed over the next week. It will also block ads on its platform from such media houses. The decision is part of the social media's efforts to prevent Russia and China in meddling into the US elections which is scheduled in November this year.

Facebook had earlier in October said that it would roll out these labels to provide users with greater transparency.

Following George Floyd's death and the subsequent violent protest across the US, Facebook faced backlash after many media outlets from Russia, Iran, China ran articles and videos of the protest. Many US and European officials suspect that such government-owned outlets are tarnishing the image of the Western countries.

Meanwhile, several former influential Facebook employees have written an open letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, criticizing his inaction over controversial posts from US President Donald Trump on glorifying violence and calling him to start fact-checking world leaders and labeling harmful posts.

There have been some resignations too at the company over the inaction.