Facebook Announces It Will Censor Content that Could Cause ‘Regulatory Impacts’

This week, Facebook announced that the platform will take down or censor content that is completely legal and within the rules but that the site believes could increase regulatory or legal risks for the social media giant worldwide.

Bloomberg reports that Facebook announced on Tuesday that it will take down user-posted content that the site deems may cause legal or regulatory issues for the social media platform. The language used gives the site room to remove any content that it deems necessary to maintain its business objectives, and are set to take effect on October 1.

Facebook stated that the change allows the social media giant to block individuals and publishers in Australia from sharing news, pushing back against a proposed law that would for Facebook to pay media firms for their articles. But the change isn’t specific to Australia, a company spokesperson clarified to Bloomberg that this change applies globally.

A notification sent to smartphone users this week states: “We also can remove or restrict access to your content, services or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate adverse legal or regulatory impacts to Facebook.”
Facebook has had issues in the past with determining the extent to which it should police content, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg assuring users that he was an advocate of free speech while many pages and groups were removed or demonetized on the Facebook platform for various reasons.

Zuckerberg has specifically said that Facebook should not be the “arbiter of truth.” In a Fox News interview, Zuckerberg said that it isn’t up to social media platforms to be “the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online.”

Breitbart News recently reported that conservative commentator Candace Owens had her page demonetized following a post about Vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Owens plans to sue the social media site over the issue.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com