Facebook's recent advertising policy that groups political news in its political ad archive has received criticism for undermining journalism and labeling journalistic content as advertisements. This policy has the potential for less people to read political stories from news organizations because the content will go straight to the ad archive.
The latest use of the policy has sent the internet in upheaval. Reveal, an investigative journalism nonprofit, published a story about immigrant children being held at a detention center and allegedly being injected with drugs. It proceeded to share the story on Facebook.
Reveal also tried to boost the story on Facebook, but the social media platform did not allow the post to be boosted on the grounds that the story included "political content".
Reveal fired back at Facebook, claiming that the story was an actual news story and not just political content.
This is not the first time real journalism has been blocked from being published on Facebook. The New York Times has had several stories blocked.
Facebook claims that the goal of the policy is to make people aware of who is posting and paying for political messages.