Facebook Started Labelling Pages That Are Controlled by the Government

Where does all our news come from?

How do you know, for instance, that this article was really written by a Goody Feed writer and not by the government?

Reader: Because you once wrote an article called 7 Facts About Nose Hair, The Bush Hiding Inside Every Nose.

Ok, that’s a good point.

Still, we form our opinions on world events based on the news articles that we read about them, but what if those articles are skewed to influence us? What if some news publications hide or censor certain information because it furthers their own agenda?

Thankfully, one social media company is trying to combat that.

Facebook Started Labelling Pages That Are Controlled by the Government

On Thursday (4 June), Facebook started labelling the pages, posts, and advertisements of media organisations that are “state-controlled”.

This means that publications that are under the influence of the government will be labelled, in a move to increase the transparency of the content on their platform.

Examples include Russia Today and China’s Xinhua.

The labels will look like this:

According to CNA, advertisements from such outlets in the United States will be also be blocked later this year.

But why is Facebook doing this?

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Caution Ahead of the US Election

You might remember Facebook getting criticized during the 2016 US election for giving away personal data to Cambridge Analytica to be used for political advertising.

They were also under scrutiny for failing to prevent foreign interference in the election. *cough cough* Russia *cough cough*.

Thus, with the 2020 US Presidential election coming, Facebook is doing this to “provide an extra layer of protection against various types of foreign influence in the public debate”.

“We believe people should know if the news they read is coming from a publication that may be under the influence of a government”, said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of security policy.

“If you’re reading coverage of a protest, it’s really important you know who is writing that coverage and what motivation they have. The goal of this is to ensure the public will see and understand who is behind it”, he said.

Plus, as CNN reported, countries like Russia and China have been accused of not being completely truthful in their coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, for example, so if people are aware that a news publication is controlled by the government, they may not believe everything they are told.

This, however, begs the question:

What Counts As State-Controlled Media?

According to Facebook, there are several factors the social media giant will consider before labelling a news organisation as state-controlled.

These include:

• The editorial website’s mission statement and/or public reporting on how it accomplishes its journalistic mission
• The publisher’s ownership structure
• The editorial guidelines around its transparency and diversity of sources
• The information around the newsroom’s staff
• The sources of funding and its revenue
• Its accountability and governance mechanisms around corrections, complaints, and other similar procedures

Facebook said it consulted over 65 experts around the world specializing in media, governance, human rights, and development” when developing this policy.

“If we determine that there are enough protections in place to ensure editorial independence, we will not apply the label,” Gleicher said.

Essentially, if the editors of a news publication are free to make decisions without interference from the government, they will likely not be labelled as “state-controlled”.

This move will surely anger many news outlets. A spokesperson for Russia Today has already called it “a prime example of ‘fake news’.

Let’s see who else ends up on their list.