Facebook said that it will start labeling newsworthy content that violates the social media company’s policies, and label all posts and ads about voting with links to authoritative information, including those from politicians.

Facebook said that it will flag all "newsworthy" posts from politicians that break its rules, including those from President Donald Trump. Separately, Facebook's stock dropped more than 8%, erasing roughly $50 billion from its market valuation, after the European company behind brands such as Ben & Jerry's and Dove announced it would boycott Facebook ads through the end of the year over the amount of hate speech and divisive rhetoric on its platform. Later in the day, Coca-Cola also announced it joined the boycott for at least 30 days.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a live-streamed company town hall that Facebook would also ban ads that claim people from groups based on race, religion, sexual orientation or immigration status are a threat to physical safety or health. The policy changes come during a growing ad boycott campaign, called “Stop Hate for Profit,” that was started by several U.S. civil rights groups after the death of George Floyd, to pressure the company to act on hate speech and misinformation.

More than 90 advertisers including Japanese carmaker Honda Motor Co Ltd’s U.S. subsidiary, Unilever’s Ben & Jerry’s, Verizon Communications Inc. and The North Face, a unit of VF Corp, have joined the campaign, according to a list by ad activism group Sleeping Giants. The campaign specifically asks businesses not to advertise on Facebook’s platforms in July, though Twitter has also long been urged to clean up alleged abuses and misinformation on its platform.

In a statement, a Facebook spokeswoman pointed to its civil rights audit and investments in Artificial Intelligence that allow it to find and take action on hate speech.

“We know we have more work to do, and we’ll continue to work with civil rights groups, GARM, and other experts to develop even more tools, technology and policies to continue this fight,” she said, referring to the Global Alliance for Responsible Media.

Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Civic Media, said the changes are a “reminder of how powerful Facebook may be in terms of spreading disinformation during the upcoming election.” He said the voting labels will depend on how good Facebook’s artificial intelligence is at identifying posts to label.

Source- Reuters