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Facebook Backs Political Ads Policy Despite Pushback

In a briefing to reporters in Brussels, Nick Clegg, the companys vice president for global affairs and communications, said Facebook wouldnt follow its competitor Twitter Inc.

Clegg said Facebook has proven to be an extremely important instrument by which democratic debate is enriched by lending a voice to politicians that challenge incumbents.

Twitter in October said it would ban political ads, with the exception of some cause-based ads for certain issues, while Alphabet Inc.s Google in November said it would severely limit how political advertisers can target people online. Some news outlets reported in November that Facebook was also mulling changes to its ads policy, including to limit the level of detail political campaigns or groups can use to target voters.

Responding to the reports, Clegg said Monday it had looked at both Twitter and Googles changes to their ads policies and could consider enhancements and improvements in the future, but that the fundamental architecture of our approach to allow political ads wont change.

The Facebook executive said the decision wasnt commercial, adding that political ads would likely make up less than 0.5% of the companys total revenues next year.

Zuckerberg has come under fire for his position because it means politicians can publish lies or misinformation on the social network and pay Facebook to spread those messages to voters. President Trumps campaign has already taken advantage of the policy by running recent ads claiming Democratic front-runner Joe Biden bribed Ukrainian officials -- claims that have been debunked.

Separately, Facebook on Monday also announced a limited trial of a new tool that will allow users to transfer their Facebook photos and videos to other services, starting with Google Photos.

The pressure from regulators in the name of competition is to allow data to walk about a bit more, Clegg said, adding that making data more portable also posed new privacy risks of their own.

Original article
Author: Yahoo

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