To avoid misinformation and confusion among audience, two websites decide to extend ban on political ads.
On Wednesday, Facebook announced its plan to extend the ban on political ads that were supposed to last about a week. Facebook and Google banned political ads raising concerns from campaigns and groups eager to reach voters for key Georgia races in January that will decide control of the Senate.
“The temporary pause for ads about politics and social issues in the US continues to be in place as a 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,” Facebook confirmed through a blog post.
Baseless claims about elections were doing the rounds of social media earlier this week as President Donald Trump questioned the validity of the outcome, even as state officials reported no notable irregularities and legal experts cautioned he had little chance to overrule Democratic President elect Joe Biden’s victory.
Google, about the length of its ad ban, declined to comment. But according to one advertiser, the company has floated the possibility of extending it through or after December. While another spokes person said “the company would lift its ban based on factors such as the time needed for votes to be counted and whether there was civil unrest.”
Meanwhile Twitter is now using light label that “Provide additional context” instead of its most restrictive election related warning labels, which hid and limited engagement on violating tweets, said Katie Rosborough, a spokeswoman for Twitter. On Tuesday morning, on two of Trump’s tweets, a label was placed reading “this claim about election fraud is disputed” but by evening each was re-tweeted more than 80,000 times.
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