Picture: Sollen Faisa / Unplash
Facebook users will soon have more control over who can comment on their public posts. An advertisement This Wednesday (31) has been created by the social media giant.
Users will be able to choose from three options for each of their news posts: whether comments will be allowed by the entire audience; If only friends can comment; Or whether the comment will be issued only for the pages mentioned in the profile and post. It would also be possible to define that no one comments on a post on a page that you are an administrator.
And why is Facebook adding this functionality? In fact, we do not know for sure. However, the platform wants to give more control to users and their profiles or pages, although the reality is slightly more complex.
For example, the Australian Supreme Court, Recently decided Those news organizations are legally responsible for comments left by random users on their posts. This is not a problem in the United States, where there are different legal precedents, but it can become a stumbling block for companies and influencers from other countries with a Facebook page.
This is the case in Australia, which used very specific methods to oppose large technology companies. Facebook has temporarily shut down all news within the platform; For its part, Google threatened to get its search engine out of the country. And despite what it did not want at all, the Australian government obtained substantial concessions to make the action worthwhile, leaving many other countries interested in its technology trade diplomacy.
Facebook is back in normal operation in Australia, but the company probably understands that it needs to make special concessions if it does not want to face tougher regulation worldwide in the future. And, in terms of limiting comments, it should definitely reduce engagement (the only metric Facebook really cares about), but also crack down on things like harassment.
We don’t know for sure whether Facebook is adding this feature in direct response to Australia’s recent changes, but it would matter a lot. And it would make sense for companies like Facebook to overtake regulators, even if it hurts their bottom line.
