Facebook Lifts Political Ad Ban (politico.com) 27
Facebook will lift its ban on political ads on Thursday, ending a self-imposed prohibition that began immediately after the November 2020 general election and remained active for months. Politico reports: Facebook informed top political advertisers of its decision by phone and email on Wednesday, according to sources with knowledge of the announcement. The social media giant banned political and social issue-related ads in early November in an effort to curb misinformation around the general election. But the pause on political ads extended deep into the first months of the Biden administration, only partially lifted ahead of the Georgia Senate runoffs in early January.
Facebook will now return political ads to its platform, one of the largest and most cost-effective ways for campaigns to reach voters and potential supporters. Digital strategists in both parties were sharply critical of Facebook's decision to cut off access to voters for the last several months, upending off-year campaign strategies. In an email sent to clients on Wednesday, Facebook representatives said, "while we are lifting the ad pause, our work is not over."
"For the past several years, we invested heavily to fight misinformation, voter suppression and election interference, and remain committed to removing and reducing this type of content while connecting people with reliable information across our apps," the email continued, signed by two Facebook partners. "As a result, we plan to use the coming months to take a closer look at how these ads work on our service to see where further changes may be merited."
Facebook will now return political ads to its platform, one of the largest and most cost-effective ways for campaigns to reach voters and potential supporters. Digital strategists in both parties were sharply critical of Facebook's decision to cut off access to voters for the last several months, upending off-year campaign strategies. In an email sent to clients on Wednesday, Facebook representatives said, "while we are lifting the ad pause, our work is not over."
"For the past several years, we invested heavily to fight misinformation, voter suppression and election interference, and remain committed to removing and reducing this type of content while connecting people with reliable information across our apps," the email continued, signed by two Facebook partners. "As a result, we plan to use the coming months to take a closer look at how these ads work on our service to see where further changes may be merited."
Impose ban when it fits your agendas. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I generally perform actions that suit my agenda, and do not perform actions that do not suit my agenda. It's always made sense to me to do things that way. I really don't care if it butthurts other people or not.
Strange comment. This is pretty much the Liberterian principle yet a lot of your comments are anti-libertarian. You might want to decide which side you're on.
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No-one needs to have agendas anymore. Not that anyone did of course.
Oh man, so much naivety in so few words...
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Lift ban when it fits your agendas.
What agenda?
If you mean they were trying to influence the election, can you explain why FB imposed the ban after the election?
Facebook should ban itself (Score:5, Funny)
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I had one maybe 10 or so years ago, but even then there was shenanigans going on that I didn't like, so I deleted the account.
Before anyone says it: wasn't even in my real name anyway. Nothing traceable back to me IRL.
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Go woke go broke...
Of all the big tech companies, FB is the least woke.
Re: Dying platform (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3)
Unintended consequences (Score:1)
Simple solution to political ads on facebook. (Score:4, Insightful)
Regulate such that they are unable to target the political ads. This would make the ads more similar to tv ads rather than allowing ads to easily create echo chambers. At most perhaps they can target US citizens or perhaps a state using IP address locations.
Re: Simple solution to political ads on facebook. (Score:2)
I love that idea, but it has to go down to at least the city level to account for congressional districts and local elections. That's still about on par with how targeted TV and radio ads can be though.
They got Pudding Cup elected. (Score:1)
With Pudding Cup Joe in office there's no longer any reason for the ban. Sure the guy can't function after 6pm and has no clue what's on his itinerary and China, the country currently doing it's best to emulate Hitler's attempt at eliminating a specific religious group, has so much blackmail on his family it's not funny, but hey, Orange Man Bad.
Shareholders want more earnings... (Score:2)
Of course (Score:1)
Sure, now that there is no danger that Trump might be re-elected.