The reported change comes as Facebook is expected to
announce its response to recommendations made by the company's independent
oversight board when it ruled on the firm's suspension of former US President
Donald Trump.
A Facebook spokesman declined to comment on The Verge
report.
Tech platforms have grappled in recent years with how to
police world leaders and politicians who violate their guidelines. Facebook and
Twitter have long held that politicians should be given greater latitude in
their speech on platforms than ordinary users.
Facebook's oversight board, an independent group funded by
the company which can overrule its decisions in a small slice of content
moderation cases, recently upheld Facebook's block on Trump following the
January 6 Capitol riot, but said the social media giant was wrong to make the
suspension indefinite.
It also gave non-binding recommendations, which Facebook is
expected to respond to in full as soon as Friday. The board said that the same
rules should apply to all users, though it said that heads of state and
government officials can have a greater power to cause harm.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long argued that the
company should not police politicians' speech. The company currently exempts
politicians' posts and advertisements from its third-party fact-checking
programme and its "newsworthiness exemption" allows politicians'
rule-breaking posts on the site if the public interest outweighs the harm -
though Facebook said it did not apply its newsworthiness allowance in the Trump
case.
In the board's recommendations it stressed that
considerations of "newsworthiness" should not take priority when
urgent action is needed on the platform to prevent "significant
harm."
The board also said Facebook's existing policies, such as
deciding when material is too newsworthy to remove or when to take actions on
an influential account, need to be more clearly communicated to users.
Facebook has come under fire from those who think it should
abandon its hands-off approach to political speech. But it has also been
criticised by those, including Republican lawmakers and some free-expression
advocates, who saw the Trump ban as a disturbing act of censorship.
The board gave Facebook six months to decide on a
"proportionate response" in the Trump case, which could see the
former president's account restored, permanently blocked or suspended for a
definite period of time.
Facebook has not yet announced a decision on whether the
former president will be restored to its platforms.
© Reuters