Facebooks political ads policy is predictably turning out to be a disaster
As it faces pressure tests from politicians and political groups, Facebook is starting to make exceptions to its policy that it wont fact-check advertisements published by politicians.
To back up, this all began this fall when Facebook announced it wouldnt fact-check political speech, including ads, and campaigns started to test the implications of this policy. In September, Facebook refused to take down an ad run by Donald Trumps reelection campaign that made false claims about former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and their activities in Ukraine.Facebook wasnt the only platform to refuse to pull the ad YouTube, Twitter, MSNBC, and Fox made the same call but Facebook caught the most flak for it.
Elizabeth Warren , who has emerged as a fierce Facebook critic in the 2020 primary, ran a fake ad claiming Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had endorsed Trumps reelection.
Warren also, without evidence, suggested the social network had adopted the policy as part of a backroom deal with Trump.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got Zuckerberg to admit in a House hearing he would probably let her run ads against Republicans saying they supported the Green New Deal.Along the way, Zuckerberg continued defending the policy, even as his own employees, in a rare move, wrote a letter expressing concern with the stance and pushed him to rethink his decision.
A left-leaning political action committee, the Really Online Lefty League, had posted the ad, and Facebook said it took the action because the ad came from a political action group, not a politician, and therefore different rules applied.
Just the possibility that political ads could be lying is going to have a significant impact on how people interact with the ads to begin with, Phillips said.
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