Facebook to flag posts that break its rules

Facebook said Friday that it will flag all "newsworthy" posts from politicians that break its rules, including those from President Donald Trump.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg had previously refused to take action against Trump posts suggesting that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud, saying that people deserved to hear unfiltered statements from political leaders.  Twitter, by contrast, slapped a "get facts" label on m.

Until Friday, Trump's posts with identical wording to those labeled on Twitter remained untouched on Facebook, sparking criticism from Trump's opponents as well as current and former Facebook employees. w, Facebook is all but certain to face off with president next time he posts something company deems to be violating its rules.

Zuckerberg said social network is taking additional steps to counter election-related misinformation. In particular, social network will begin adding new labels to all posts about voting that will direct users to authoritative information from state and local election officials.

Facebook is also banning false claims intended to discour voting, such as stories about federal nts checking legal status at polling places. company also said it is increasing its enforcement capacity to remove false claims about local polling conditions in 72 hours before U.S. election.

Earlier in day, shares of Facebook and Twitter dropped sharply after giant company behind brands such as Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Dove soap said it will halt U.S. advertising on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram through at least end of year.

That European consumer-product maker, Unilever, said it took move to protest amount of hate speech online. Unilever said polarized atmosphere in United States ahead of vember's presidential election placed responsibility on brands to act.

Facebook's shares lost more than 8% on Friday, while Twitter ended day more than 7% lower.

company, which is based in Nerlands and Britain, joins a raft of or advertisers pulling back from online platforms. Facebook in particular has been target of an escalating movement to withhold advertising dollars to pressure it to do more to prevent racist and violent content from being shared on its platform.

Facebook did t immediately respond to a request for comment from Associated Press. On Thursday, Verizon joined ors in Facebook boycott.