Facebook now going to prioritse public interests before removing a post.
Two vice presidents from the company, Joel Kaplan and Justin Osofsky, co-signed the announcement, which acknowledged that "observing global standards for our community is complex".
"In the weeks ahead, we're going to begin allowing more items that people find newsworthy, significant, or important to the public interest — even if they might otherwise violate our standards," Kaplan and Osofsky wrote. "We will work with our community and partners to explore exactly how to do this, both through new tools and approaches to enforcement. Our intent is to allow more images and stories without posing safety risks or showing graphic images to minors and others who do not want to see them."
The move comes after repeated criticism of Facebook from news organisations, charities and others over important posts being taken down without notice or the chance to appeal. The company has faced such criticism for years, but the chorus has become particularly loud in the past two months, sparked by the removal of an article illustrated with the iconic Vietnam war photo featuring a naked girl after a napalm attack, when it was posted to the site by a Norwegian newspaper.
After that picture was removed from the site, the paper's writer was also suspended from Facebook, prompting its Editor-in-Chief to accuse Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg of censorship.
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