Facebook to Limit Political Ads Week Before Election, Label Premature Calls
September 03 2020 - 12:51PM
Dow Jones News
By Jeff Horwitz
Facebook Inc. will prohibit new political advertisements in the
week before the U.S. presidential election in November and seek to
flag any candidates' premature claims of victory, Chief Executive
Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday.
The steps are meant to head off last-minute misinformation
campaigns and limit the potential for civil unrest, Mr. Zuckerberg
said.
"This election is not going to be business as usual," he said,
noting both the difficulties of voting during a pandemic and likely
attacks on the credibility of the results.
"I'm worried that with our nation so divided and election
results potentially taking days or even weeks to be finalized,
there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the
country," he said in the statement, adding that "our democracy is
strong enough to withstand this challenge and deliver a free and
fair election."
The U.S. intelligence community has warned of attempts at
foreign interference and President Trump has leveled a sustained
attack on the integrity of the vote, raising concerns about a
social-media-fueled dispute over the election's outcome. The
Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland
Security and intelligence agencies have asked Facebook and other
social media companies to plan for such volatile circumstances.
Mr. Zuckerberg cited likely delays in tallying election results
due to an expected pandemic-driven surge in absentee voting as a
concern.
"It's important that we prepare for this possibility in advance
and understand that there could be a period of intense claims and
counterclaims as the final results are counted," he wrote.
The Trump campaign criticized Facebook's decision Thursday.
"In the last seven days of the most important election in our
history, President Trump will be banned from defending himself on
the largest platform in America," said Samantha Zager, the
campaign's deputy national press secretary, in a statement. "When
millions of voters will be making their decisions, the President
will be silenced by the Silicon Valley Mafia."
The campaign for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden
didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ben Block, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee, said the changes Facebook has made don't address what he
described as the platform's fundamental problems.
"Democrats will continue to urge these platforms to recognize
the great responsibility they have in 2020 to protect voters from
dangerous disinformation," he said. "That means real, concrete
action to combat disinformation that is being organically spread by
users on their platforms."
Among the moves Facebook announced are plans to append labels to
any false or premature claims of victory by candidates, which would
direct users to vote tallies and current results. The Reuters news
service will join with Facebook to provide that information.
Facebook also plans to prohibit campaigns from running new
political ads during the final week of the race, Mr. Zuckerberg
said. The step is meant to prevent them from spreading
misinformation at the last minute, when there wouldn't be adequate
time to rebut it, the company said.
Other new Facebook election policies include limiting the volume
of messages that can be sent through its Messenger platform and
expanding Facebook's rules against voter suppression to cover
implicit attempts at misleading users about voting procedures.
Facebook will also seek to protect election officials from threats
of violence during the vote-counting process, Mr. Zuckerberg said.
The company said its plans to take down misinformation about voting
would be implemented immediately.
The social-media giant's role in the November vote has been
closely scrutinized given its dominance and the pivotal role that
some -- including some Facebook executives -- believe it played in
the outcome of the 2016 contest.
Progressives have accused Mr. Zuckerberg and Facebook's public
policy team of bending rules to avoid confrontations with Mr.
Trump, whereas conservatives have broadly accused the Menlo Park,
Calif., company of liberal bias.
Mr. Zuckerberg has said that Facebook doesn't favor either side
and that he and his wife would donate $300 million to bolster
funding for election infrastructure. A voting information center
will soon appear at the top of users' pages on Facebook and
Instagram, which the company owns, remaining there until the
election.
Facebook has said it aims to register four million voters before
Election Day on Nov. 3, though the company hasn't shared
information about its progress toward that goal.
The company's changes come as Mr. Trump continues to attack the
credibility of the election. He has alleged without evidence that
it will likely be "rigged" -- a claim he also made in the run-up to
his 2016 victory -- by widespread voter fraud or the suppression of
Republican votes.
On Wednesday, he encouraged supporters in North Carolina to try
to vote both by mail and in person as a way of testing the mail-in
balloting system he has long criticized. The president's remarks
prompted a top state election official Thursday to clarify that
attempting to vote twice is illegal and that "soliciting someone to
do so also is a violation of North Carolina law."
A bipartisan group of election officials has sought to reassure
voters that mail-in ballots are secure and outlined ways for state
and local officials to prepare for increased absentee and mail-in
ballots because of the pandemic.
--Rebecca Ballhaus contributed to this article.
Write to Jeff Horwitz at Jeff.Horwitz@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 03, 2020 12:36 ET (16:36 GMT)
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