Facebook tightens political advertising rules ahead of 2020 election
San Francisco:
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday warned of the potential for civil unrest as votes are counted in a US election that will be “a test” for the social network.
Zuckerberg expressed concern while describing safeguards against misinformation and voter suppression within the mainstream social network, which are aimed at preventing the types of deception and abuse that occurred four years ago.
“I fear that with our nation so divided and the election results potentially taking days or weeks to finalize, there is a risk of civil unrest,” said Zuckerberg, who was also toast in a session at the Capitol earlier this week.
“In light of this, companies like ours need to go way beyond what we have done before.”
Confusion earlier this week over political Facebook ads marred the start of what was supposed to be a period of reflection ahead of the November 3 presidential election.
Rival parties have complained that Facebook was undermining campaign efforts after mistakes arose around banning the posting of new paid political ads in the week leading up to election day.
“We are investigating issues with incorrectly pausing some ads, and some advertisers are struggling to make changes to their campaigns,” Facebook product manager Rob Leathern said in a tweet when the ban was taken on Tuesday. .
Publishers of political ads can get around the ban by uploading the ads to Facebook before the deadline, and then serving them to a wider audience later.
California-based Facebook also tightened its rules on political advertising ahead of the 2020 election, including banning attempts to undermine the electoral process.
In Facebook’s paid library of posts – a publicly searchable list – for President Donald Trump’s campaign, what appeared to be a victory ad is already visible.
And on Tuesday, Megan Clasen, senior media adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, tweeted a screenshot from a Trump Facebook ad showing a photo of the president and the message “Election day is today” .
But the former vice president’s campaign had been told by Facebook that it couldn’t run ads saying election day was “today” or even “tomorrow,” Clasen said in the tweet.
Democratic political strategist Eric Reif said on Twitter that he and others were working to restore ads that had been mistakenly deleted by Facebook.
“While next week will be a test for Facebook, I’m proud of the work we’ve done here,” Zuckerberg said.
“I also know that our work doesn’t stop after November 3,” Zuckerberg said.
“We will therefore continue to anticipate new threats, evolve our approach and fight to protect the integrity of the democratic process and the right of peoples to have their voices heard in the world.”
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
