Facebook will ban new political ads a week before Election Day

Why it matters: It's the most aggressive effort Facebook has made to date to curb manipulation in the days leading up to the U.S.

Details: The company says it will ban new ads both political and issue ads for the campaign's final week because in the final days of an election, there may not be enough time to contest misleading claims. Facebook also won't allow the content of existing ads to be edited.

The tech giant will also remove posts containing misinformation about both COVID-19 and voting the strongest step it's yet taken to curb misinformation on the virus.

It will attach a link to authoritative information about COVID-19 to posts that might use COVID-19 to discourage voting.

If any candidate or campaign tries to declare victory before the final results are in, the company says it will add a label to their posts, directing users to official results as reported by Reuters.

The big picture: Experts fear a tidal wave of misinformation on Facebook and other tech platforms before, during and after the election could impact the public's trust and participation in the democratic process.

The Trump campaign and Republican National Committee sued the state of Montana on Wednesday in an attempt to limit mail-in voting in the state, just 61 days before the election.

Steve Bullock's recent mail-in voting expansion would weaken the state's election system, isn't the first GOP effort to curb mail-in ballots.

Facebook took down fake accounts and pages associated with Russian operatives who sought to trick freelance journalists into writing stories on their behalf, the company announced Tuesday.

This means Trump, thanks to Republicans doing almost all of their voting in person, could hold big electoral college and popular vote leads on election night.

Original article
Author: Sara Fischer

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Sara Fischer has recently written 8 articles on similar topics including :
  1. "Facebook has faced scrutiny for the way the platform was used to spread misinformation in the 2016 election". (June 17, 2020)
  2. "Unilever is one of the biggest advertisers in the country". (June 26, 2020)
  3. "The platform is taking this action out of an abundance of caution ahead of the 2020 election". (June 4, 2020)
  4. "It's the first time that The Times has experimented with AR technology at scale". (September 16, 2020)
  5. "They'll be used regardless of whether the posts contain misinformation". (July 16, 2020)
  6. "Facebook and Apple are fighting, again". (December 9, 2020)
  7. "The ban, along with Facebook's, had pushed advertisers to shift dollars to other platforms, like smart TVs". (February 22, 2021)
  8. "They're realizing that political speech may be too tough for them to police adequately". (January 28, 2021)
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