Facebook to ban political ads after US election poll ends to curb fake news
The social media giant Facebook has decided to stop all political and social ad campaigns after the US polls close on November 03.
Facebook had earlier declared that the platform will not be entertaining or allowing any political ad campaigns near the upcoming US elections. However, a fixed timeline was not revealed at that time.
Now, the decision has been announced explaining that in addition to the political campaigns, all ads created to social issues will also face the ban.
In addition to this, if any political party claims victory or predicts results before the the administration or main media houses release the result, Facebook will be adding additional notices around those posts.
"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," said vice president of integrity Guy Rosen.
The decision has been taken as an extension of the careful approach that various social media platforms such as Twitter andFacebook have adopted for the past few months in respect to the misinformation being spread about the US elections.
Facebook's decision to suspend all such posts isbeing read as an effort to curb President Trump's warning of not coooperating during the transition of power if he loses the elections.
"We will remove statements of intent or advocacy to go to an election site with military language," thevice president of content policy Monika Bickert.
"We will also remove calls to go to polls to monitor if it involves exerting control or showing power."
This decision has come after Facebook actively banned the posts that urged citizens to head out and cast their votes, as the social media platform said it sends out a wrong message with respect to the existing COVID-19 guidelines of staying indoors.
Facebook has also revealed that the platform has removed nearly 120,000 posts on Facebook and Instagram that were spreading the wrong information and and has added warning labels on more than 150 million posts on Facebook.
The platform is also redirecting people to voting information centre that has been set up by facebook and has, till now, helped nearly 2.5 million people register to vote.
The experts at Facebook are also prepared to spot, identify and kill the posts and content that can go viral and result in acivil unrest.
Nick Clegg, a former deputy British prime minister who is Facebook's head of global affairs, said recently that the social platform could take exceptional steps to "restrict the circulation of content" in case of turmoil.
"There are some break-glass options available to us if there really is an extremely chaotic and, worse still, violent set of circumstances," Clegg said,