China slams Facebook’s state media rules

BEIJING: China said Facebook was unfairly targeting its biggest media companies on Friday after the network began attaching disclaimers to pages run by the country´s state-controlled news outlets. Pages managed by news agency Xinhua and the fiery nationalist tabloid Global Times are now labelled “China state-controlled media”, after a policy change by the world´s largest social platform. Facebook said it will add similar labels to pages and advertisements run by media outlets subject to editorial influence and financial backing by governments, including Russian state broadcaster RT. The move comes with Facebook under scrutiny for failing for stem foreign interference in the 2016 US election, and after heated debate over how the network handles misinformation and inflammatory posts — including from US President Donald Trump.