Facebook to end special treatment of politicians' posts after Trump ban

Facebook is set to announce Friday that it will end its policy of not enforcing content-moderation rules for posts by politicians,  after permanently banning former President Donald Trump from the social media platform.

The existing policy is that such posts are kept on the site by default under the "newsworthiness exemption," even if they break Facebook fact-checking or content moderation rules, as first reported by The Verge.

Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said in 2019 about the exemption that the platform "will treat speech from politicians as newsworthy content that should, as a general rule, be seen and heard."

Facebook will no longer automatically treat politicians' posts as newsworthy and subject them to content guidelines that prohibit harassment, discrimination, or other harmful speech. More information about the new policy is set to be unveiled Friday, according to The New York Times.

After last month's decision by the Facebook's quasi-independent oversight board, affirmed Facebook's decision to suspend former Trump. The board gave the company until June 5 to review its policies toward political posts.