Facebook To Block New Political Ads In Final Week Before Election Day
Facebook will be restricting new political ads in the final week before the presidential election in the United States. This move was announced on Thursday, by the social network giant's chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.
Taking to his verified Facebook account, Zuckerberg shared a lengthy message noting that Facebook is going to block political and issue ads in the final week of the presidential campaign, which he suggests "can run get out the vote campaigns." Zuckerberg wrote that the most effective countermeasure to bad speech is more speech.
In his post, Zuckerberg noted that in the final days, there might not be enough time to challenge new claims, so in the week ahead of the election, Facebook will not accept new political or issue ads. He went on to explain that advertisers will be able to continue running ads they started running before they stopped accepting new ads.
These ads that will be allowed to run even in the week before the election, will be transparently published in Facebook's Ads Library, allowing journalists, fact-checkers, and the public to scrutinize them. The move is in line with the social media giant's attempt to restrict misinformation ahead of Election Day, Fox News reported.
Facebook has been criticized in the past for running fake news, which gets viewed by its 2.7 billion monthly active users. Zuckerberg also explained that Facebook will team up with election officials to keep its platform free from any sort of misinformation about voting.
Zuckerberg said the company is already committed to working alongside the state election authorities to identify and get rid of false claims over polling conditions during the last 72 hours of the campaign, but since this election features large amounts of early votings, the company will be extending that period and continue through the election until a clear result is announced.
Zuckerberg raised concerns about the challenges people are likely to face when voting. He said election results could take several days or even weeks before they are finalized, and that could lead to civil unrest across America.
In the post, Zuckerberg warned this election is not going to be business as usual, suggesting everyone has a responsibility to protect their democracy. He urged people to help those unable to register and vote, clear up confusion about how this election will work. He advised people to take steps to minimize the chances of unrest and violence.