Facebook won’t be displaying political ads in the final days leading up to the election on November 3rd. In a lengthy post, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote:
Today, we’re announcing additional steps we’re taking at Facebook to encourage voting, connect people with authoritative information, and fight misinformation. These changes reflect what we’ve learned from our elections work over the past four years and the conversations we’ve had with voting rights experts and our civil rights auditors.
Zuckerberg says the platform will “block new political and issue ads during the final week of the campaign.” Here’s his rationale:
It’s important that campaigns can run get out the vote campaigns, and I generally believe the best antidote to bad speech is more speech, but in the final days of an election there may not be enough time to contest new claims. So in the week before the election, we won’t accept new political or issue ads.
But there is a caveat. If an ad started running before the cutoff on October 27th, it will continue to be displayed:
Advertisers will be able to continue running ads they started running before the final week and adjust the targeting for those ads, but those ads will already be published transparently in our Ads Library so anyone, including fact-checkers and journalists, can scrutinize them.
Facebook is also taking action when it comes to coronavirus and candidates prematurely declaring victory.
CNBC points out this is a big switch in Zuckerberg’s position toward political advertising:
Until now, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been adamant about allowing political ads on Facebook and Instagram, even if candidates use those ads to lie or spread misinformation. Other social media companies, including Twitter and Pinterest, have already banned political ads on their services.
And some people say this is too little, too late.
I can’t help but feel like Facebook always misses the mark. I applaud the sentiment around trying to curb the spread of misinformation close to the election, but FB’s decisions consistently mimic putting band aids on things that are actually gaping wounds that need surgery.
— Jenna Golden (@jigolden) September 3, 2020
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