Facebook is rolling out a new policy targeting state media outlets.
Facebook said Thursday it will begin blocking state-controlled media outlets from buying advertising in the U.S. this summer. It’s also rolling out a new set of labels to provide users with transparency around ads and posts from state-controlled outlets. Outlets that feel wrongly labeled can appeal the process.
Details: Beginning Thursday, the types of state-backed media that U.S. users will see labels on include outlets like Russia’s Sputnik, China’s People’s Daily, Iran’s Tasnim News Agency and others.
These are obviously low-hanging fruit. Of the three examples, Tansim is little utilized even among the hard lefties, China’s People Daily would be ignored if it wasn’t for conservatives trolling them, and Sputnik has less reach than RT does.
The real question is whether Facebook will take action when it comes to Qatar’s Al Jazeera, probably the most successful state-controlled non-western news network, which has a long history of inciting violence and supporting Islamist coups around the region, even as the media has kept on legitimizing it.
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