Facebook announces update to terms of services: What does this mean for users?

File picture: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

File picture: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Published Sep 3, 2020

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Johannesburg - Having been under a lot of scrutiny in the past few months for its policies which regulates content on its platform, Facebook has recently added a rule on its terms and conditions which indicated that any content that puts it at regulatory or legal risk will be removed from the platform.

According to Business Insider, the world’s leading social media platform on Monday started issuing a warning to users regarding its updated terms and conditions that will come into effect on October 1. This is set to allow the company to take down any content it thinks could put it at risk of being punished by regulators

"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," the newly updated wording of Facebook's terms and conditions reads.

The new terms and conditions updates came a day before Facebook Inc said it would stop Australians sharing news content on its platforms if a proposal to make it pay local media outlets for their content becomes law, escalating tension with the Australian government.

Facebook's plan to block the sharing of news on Australian user accounts, rather than pay royalties, puts the firm broadly in step with Google on the matter and pushes the prospect of an agreement with the government further out of reach, Reuters reported.

The company has not stated clearly the reason why it has chosen to introduce this new rule.

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