This archive report was first published on 27 June 2020.
Facebook has faced intense pressure from activists and advertisers to take action on hate speech and discriminatory content on its platform.
On Friday, the social media giant announced a new policy to ban a wider category of hateful content in ads, in response to growing protests over its handling of inflammatory posts.
According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the new policy will prohibit claims that people from a specific race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, gender identity, or immigration status are a threat to the physical safety, health, or survival of others.
Facebook has also announced that it will add tags to posts that are deemed 'newsworthy' but violate platform rules, following the lead of Twitter, which has used such labels on tweets from President Donald Trump.
Twitter has faced intense backlash from Trump and his allies over its decision to label some of his tweets as misleading or violating platform rules.
Facebook's new policy comes as the company faces a growing boycott by advertisers, including Coca-Cola and Unilever, which have joined a campaign to stop advertising on Facebook due to its handling of hate speech and discriminatory content.
Facebook has underscored its commitment to addressing racism and hate speech on its platform, following the killing of African American George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May.
