Facebook Moves To Tout Image Rather Than Apologize For Rogue Content: Report

The effort, called Project Amplify, would be a dramatic shift in policy for the social media giant, which had taken to apologizing publicly for any untow...

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg reportedly approved a new internal effort to defend the tech giant’s reputation on users’ News Feeds last month, what would be a dramatic shift in policy amid criticism over the spread of misinformation on social media.

The New York Times first reported Tuesday that Zuckerberg signed off on the effort, called Project Amplify, in August. That plan included proposals to elevate positive stories about Facebook on users’ feeds, the site’s most popular section, including posts written by Facebook itself. The publication, citing people familiar with the project, said some top officials at the company were shocked at the idea.

Project Amplify has since been tested in three U.S. cities, the Times added. A company spokesperson, Joe Osborne, told the newspaper that any positive posts were part of a “test for an informational unit” and “clearly marked as coming from Facebook,” linking them to other company’s corporate responsibility programs.