Facebook to pause political ads in US after polls close for 2020 election on Nov 3

With US Presidential election fast approaching, Facebook, on October 7, announced that it will stop running political ads in America after polls close on November 3 to reduce chances of ‘confusion or abuse’. The company said that any posts prematurely declaring a winner or contesting the count will be labelled with reliable information from news outlets and election officials. In a blog post, Facebook said that they plan to temporarily stop running social issue, electoral, or political ads for an indefinite period. 

The temporary ban is expected to last about one week, but that will be subject to change. In recent months, Facebook has been under pressure to avoid being used to spread misinformation and inflame social division as was the case during the 2016 presidential election. This year, as the company came up with several initiatives to stop the spread of fake news, the recent move will tighten the rules on ads and posts about voting or policies on Facebook and Instagram. 

While speaking at a press briefing, Facebook executives said, “If a candidate or party declares premature victory before a race is called by major media outlets, we will add more specific information in the notifications that counting is still in progress and no winner has been determined”. 

READ: Facebook Broadens Measures Against QAnon, Will Remove Groups

READ: Donald Trump's Facebook Post On Covid Deleted; Twitter Flags It As 'harmful Information'

Facebook will remove the statement of ‘intent or advocacy’ 

Additionally, the social media company also announced that it will remove calls for people to engage in poll-watching when those calls use militarised language or suggest that the goal is to intimidate, exert control, or display power over election officials or voters. While addressing the press briefing, Facebook’s vice president of content policy Monika Bickert said that the company will remove statement of intent or advocacy to go to an election site with military language. She added that this would include words such as ‘army’ or ‘battle’. 

Over the past year, Facebook has been repeatedly criticised for its decision to allow politicians to include misinformation in their ads while others in the social media market have banned political ads altogether. The company previously had announced that it would not allow new political ads to run starting seven days prior to the election and they had also said that it will not allow any ads that seek to delegitimise the results of the election. The recent policy change comes as US President Donald Trump had used social media to make false claims that voting by mail leads to election fraud. 

READ: Facebook Bans All Accounts, Pages Linked To QAnon Conspiracy

READ: Twitter, Facebook To Ban Content That Wishes Donald Trump's Death From COVID-19