Facebook is changing its terms of service: Here’s what that means

Facebook is making a major change to its platform. The company is changing its Terms of Service (or ToS) for all its users. These new terms of service will come into effect on October 1, 2020, and they basically mitigate any legal liability off the company.

Facebook has started showing updates to uses all across the globe in their Facebook apps informing the users about the change. “Effective October 1, 2020, section 3.2 of our Terms of Service will be updated to include: We also can remove or restrict access to your content, services or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate adverse legal or regulatory impacts to Facebook,” Facebook says in the message notifying the users.

This change has also been made on Facebook’s web-based platform. The company has essentially added a single line that enables the social media giant to remove any content from its platform shared by its users that can get the company into any sort of trouble.

Notably, this tiny change will not affect the day-to-day of the Facebook app for most users. However, if you share content that contains fake news or contain violence or violates its community standards, Facebook can remove the post at its discretion.

Notably, this change will be made shortly before the US Presidential Elections 2020 that are scheduled to take place on November 3. It also comes shortly after Facebook flashed a warning to its users in Australia warning them that it would prevent them from sharing local and international news if the country enforces the draft legislation that would force the tech companies for the media content that publishers share on their platform.