Yet another new Facebook content policy has hit the platform, enabling Facebook to censor even more pages than before.
Facebook updated its fake news policy on January 23, to include some more reasons to take down pages and groups. If a page violates a policy, not only will it be taken down, but also any pages with the same admins or similar characteristics could be taken down. According to Wired, “the company won't need to demonstrate infractions from every single page to justify a sweeping takedown.”
In addition, Facebook is also adding an admin panel that allows pages to see how many times they have been flagged for spreading fake news and “misinformation.” If fact-checkers rate their content as false, mixture, or mostly false, admins will be informed of the strike against them.
The Verge mentioned that not only was this policy meant to stop fake news, but also “purposefully inflammatory content.” This begs the question, what does Facebook define as “purposefully inflammatory?” Some news by nature is inflammatory, just based on the impact it will have.
This also makes the repercussions for what Facebook deems to be a violation much broader. If someone is deemed as violating a policy, then all of their pages could be deleted without review.
A Facebook spokesperson said that Facebook “didn’t have an update on what Pages will be subject to this new policy.”
