Facebook bans ads on vote-rigging claims
Facebook has banned advertisements on its flagship website and Instagram photo and videosharing service that claim widespread voting fraud, suggest US election results would be invalid, or which attack any method of voting.
The company announced the new rules in a blog post, adding to earlier restrictions on premature claims of election victory.
The move came a day after US President Donald Trump used the first televised debate with Democratic challenger Joe Biden to amplify his claims that the November 3 presidential election will be rigged ”.
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Trump has been especially critical of mail-in ballots, and cited small unrelated incidents to argue that fraud is already happening at scale.
Facebook has been under fire for refusing to fact-check political ads and for rampant organic misinformation. Citing hate speech rules, it also moved on Wednesday to remove Trump campaign ads suggesting that immigrants could be a source of coronavirus infections.
Facebook said the new election ad prohibition is to include those that portray voting or
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census participation as useless/ meaningless or that delegiti
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mise any lawful method or process of voting or voting tabulation as illegal, inherently
…
fraudulent or corrupt ”.
Facebook cited ads that call an election fraudulent or corrupt because the result is unclear on election night or because ballots received afterward are still being counted.
The company added that it has also banned ads that praise,
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support or represent militarised social movements and QAnon
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from its platform.
QAnon followers espouse beliefs based on anonymous postings from Q ”, who claims to
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have insider knowledge of the Trump administration. Facebook will now direct people to credible child safety resources when they search for certain child safety hashtags, as QAnon supporters are using the issue and hashtags such as #savethechildren to recruit, the social media company said.