Amid backlash over President Donald Trump’s posts, Mark Zuckerberg has announced that Facebook will review its policies.
The Facebook chairman is under fire for not ensuring that the platform checks the American leader’s posts
In reaction to protests over George Floyd death, Trump, on his Facebook page, described demonstrators as “THUGS”.
The United States President added that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”.
Twitter took an action by placing a “public interest notice” on the comments it said was “glorifying violence”.
However, Facebook failed the act, a decision that sparked outrage and resignations.
On Friday, 22:55pm Nigerian time, Zuckerberg, via his Facebook page, announced that the company would review its policies.
The mogul said he had shared the decision with employees.
He acknowledged the “real pain expressed by members of our community. I also want to acknowledge that the decision I made last week has left many of you angry, disappointed and hurt”.
Zuckerberg said the platform “will review our policies allowing discussion and threats of state use of force to see if there are any amendments we should adopt. There are two specific situations under this policy that we’re going to review. The first is around instances of excessive use of police or state force”.
He said the review would also affect policies around voter suppression to make sure the realities of voting in the midst of a pandemic are taken into account.
Zuckerberg said potential options for handling violating or partially-violating content aside from the binary leave-it-up or take-it-down decisions will also be reviewed.
He noted that the current policy is that if content is actually inciting violence, then the right mitigation is to take that content down – not let people continue seeing it behind a flag.
The chairman declared that there is no exception to this policy for politicians or newsworthiness.
Zuckerberg said Facebook will work on establishing a clearer and more transparent decision-making process.
“More broadly, we’re going to review whether we need to change anything structurally to make sure the right groups and voices are at the table – not only when decisions affecting a certain group are being made, but when other decisions that may set precedents are being made as well”, he added.
AFP