Facebook’s failing efforts in Hungary

As a part of Facebook’s efforts to curb disinformation and misinformation on its platform, the company introduced new rules over how political content is marked. This has resulted in content that is educational, news articles, and otherwise seemingly non-political being marked incorrectly and taken down. In Hungary (and Ukraine) this has caused frustration from newspapers, especially due to difference between how Western European papers are treated differently from others. The Guardian reports “In the US and western Europe, Facebook has protected the ability of major media to advertise their content by creating a “whitelist” of reputable news organisations. But the rest of Europe has not been covered, and so no news outlets can promote any content. It is just one way that Hungary and other small countries appear to be treated as second-tier nations by a company uncertain how to handle political, legal and commercial minefields.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/18/hungary-crucible-facebook-attempt-banish-fake-news

Emma Graham-Harrison and Shaun Walker

The Guardian