Facebook will begin adding labels to state-controlled media outlets in a bid to increase transparency, the company said on Thursday.

“We want to help people better understand who’s behind the news they see on Facebook,” the social media giant said in an official statement.

“We’re providing greater transparency into these publishers because they combine the influence of a media organization with the strategic backing of a state, and we believe people should know if the news they read is coming from a publication that may be under the influence of a government,” it added.

Facebook has developed its own set of policy guidelines to identify the state-controlled media outlet. This includes a host of factors including mission statement, editorial guidelines, sources of funding, leadership and ownership structure, among others.

“We also consider country-specific factors, including press freedom,” Facebook said.

Facebook will label these pages. They will appear globally on Pages in Facebook’s Ad Library Page view, in the Page Transparency section. The labels will also be displayed in the News Feed for users in the US over the course of the next week.

The company will also label ads from these outlets, later this year.

“Later this summer, we’ll apply the label to ads from state-controlled media outlets, starting with a few outlets and adding more over time,” Facebook said.

Apart from this, in a run-up t the upcoming elections, Facebook will also start blocking ads in the US from these outlets “out of an abundance of caution to provide an extra layer of protection against various types of foreign influence in the public debate.”

Published on June 5, 2020