Facebook extends political ad ban in US

The temporary pause for ads about politics and social issues in the US continues to be in place as part of our ongoing efforts to protect the election.

San Francisco: Facebook on Thursday extended the ban on political ads for another month in the US as President Donald Trump refuses to concede his defeat and is using claims of election fraud to dispute the Joe Biden win.

The move is to prevent the further spread of misinformation on its platform.

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“The temporary pause for ads about politics and social issues in the US continues to be in place as part of our ongoing efforts to protect the election. Advertisers can expect this to last another month, though there may be an opportunity to resume these ads sooner,” the company said in an update

Getting the US election results this year may take longer than in previous elections due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and more people voting by mail.

“We’ve introduced a range of policies and products to help protect the integrity of the election and reduce opportunities for confusion or abuse,” the company added.

Days after banning ads prematurely declaring victory in the presidential election, Facebook in October banned those questioning the US electoral process.

“We’re temporarily extending a number of measures we put in place to protect the election process. Everyone on Facebook and Instagram in the US continues to see the labels we’ve been running on candidate posts saying Biden is the projected winner,” said Rob Leathern from Product Management at Facebook.

“We do not have the technical ability in the short term to enable political ads by state or by advertiser, and we are also committed to giving political advertisers equal access to our tools and services”.

Trump has refused to concede to his Democratic rival and incumbent President-elect Joe Biden, who was projected the winner of the November 3 election after crossing the threshold of 270 electoral college votes needed to secure victory.