Facebook then confirmed the extension in a blog post.
Facebook Inc said on Wednesday that its post-election ban on political ads would likely last for another month, raising concerns from campaigns and groups keen to reach voters for major races in Georgia in January that will decide Senate control.
The ban, one of the steps Facebook has taken to tackle disinformation and other abuse on its site, was expected to last for about a week but could be extended. Alphabet Inc’s Google also appeared to stick to its post-election political advertising ban.
“While several sources have projected a presidential winner, we still believe it is important to help avoid confusion or abuse on our platform,” Facebook told advertisers in an email seen by Reuters. He said he expected the hiatus to last another month, although “there may be an opportunity to resume these commercials sooner.”
Facebook then confirmed the extension in a blog post.
Baseless claims about the election reverberated on social media this week as President Donald Trump challenged the validity of the result, even though state officials reported no significant irregularities and experts Lawyers have warned that he was unlikely to undo the victory of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.
In a Facebook group set up on Sunday, which quickly grew to nearly 400,000 members on Wednesday, members calling for a nationwide recount traded unsubstantiated accusations of electoral fraud allegations and the state’s vote count every few seconds .
“The reality now is that we are not in the danger zone,” said Vanita Gupta, executive director of the Leaders’ Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Google declined to answer questions about the length of its advertising break, although an advertiser said the company had offered to extend it until December or after. A Google spokeswoman previously said the company would lift its ban based on factors such as how long it takes for votes to be counted and if there was civil unrest.
The extensions mean that the two main digital advertising giants, which together control more than half of the market, will not accept election ads until two hotly contested U.S. Senate second-round races in Georgia, including ads aimed at increase voter turnout.
Democratic and Republican digital strategists have spoken out against the rulings, saying the bans are too broad and fail to address a much bigger problem on platforms: the organic spread of viral lies in unpaid posts.
The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, along with Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock senatorial campaigns, have called for an exemption for races in Georgia so they can let voters know about upcoming deadlines.
“It drives us absolutely nuts,” said Mark Jablonowski, managing partner of DSPolitical, a digital company that works with Democratic causes.
Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist, said he believed companies’ concerns about election results ads did not require a blanket ban. “It’s something that deserves a scalpel and they use a rusty ax,” he says.
Facebook’s chief product officer, Rob Leathern, acknowledged the frustration in a series of tweets, but said the world‘s largest social network lacked “the short-term technical ability to enable state-owned political ads. or by advertiser “.
VIRAL LIES
The companies declined to say when they would lift other “crushing” election measures introduced for unpaid posts, such as downgrades of Facebook content which its systems say could be disinformation.
Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said the emergency measures would not be permanent, but the rollback was “not imminent”.
Google’s YouTube, which tags all election-related videos with information about the result, said it would stick with this approach “as long as necessary.”
The video-sharing company bans “patently false” claims about the electoral process, but has used the tool sparingly, claiming hyperbolic statements about a political party “stealing” the election did not violate policy.
However, Twitter Inc stopped using its most restrictive election-related warning labels, which hid and limited engagement on violent tweets. Instead, the company is now using lighter weight labels that “provide additional context,” spokeswoman Katie Rosborough said.
Twitter placed a tag stating that “this allegation of electoral fraud is disputed” on two of Trump’s tweets Tuesday morning, but each was retweeted more than 80,000 times that evening.
Wilson Center disinformation specialist Nina Jankowicz said the commercials were necessary but not enough to curb the spread of viral lies.
“It’s clear President Trump doesn’t think the election is over, so I don’t think platforms should treat them as if they are,” she said.
