Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has signed off an initiative to push positive stories about the company via users' News Feeds, reported The New York Times on Tuesday, 21 September.
This campaign is termed as 'Project Amplify', which is designed to run ads that will show more pro-Facebook news stories and highlight more posts written by the company.
According to a report by NYT, Facebook began testing the changes in three cities through a tool called 'Quick Promote', marking the first time the company explicitly pushed positive press about itself.
Facebook Changes Its PR Strategy
Facebook spokesperson Joe Osborne told Insider, "There is zero change to the News Feed ranking. This is a test for an informational unit clearly marked as coming from Facebook. It's not the first of its kind, and is similar to corporate responsibility initiatives people see in other technology and consumer products."
This development comes amid Facebook employees have raised concerns about the company's handling of COVID-19 misinformation to algorithmic changes that they feared promoted divisive political content.
A report by Insider reveals that Facebook's public relations strategy has become unapologetic in recent months, including shelving a report that showed the most popular post on its platform in Q1 2021 contained misinformation about the coronavirus vaccine.
Denying that the company's strategy had shifted, Osborne told the Times, "People deserve to know the steps we're taking to address the different issues facing our company - and we're going to share those steps widely."
(With inputs from The New York Times and Business Insider)
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