Social media giant Facebook has announced plans to reject political ads that attempt to link topics such as mail-in voting to allegations of voting fraud.
The Hill reports that a Facebook official recently announced changes to the platform’s ad policy which would see the social network removing any political ads that attempt to link types of voting such as mail-in voting to allegations of widespread voting fraud.
Facebook’s director of project management, Rob Leathern, stated in a tweet: “As we get closer to Election Day we want to provide further clarity on policies we recently announced. Last week we said we’d prohibit ads that make premature declarations of victory. We also won’t allow ads with content that seeks to delegitimize the outcome of an election.”
Leathern added: “For example, this would include calling a method of voting inherently fraudulent or corrupt, or using isolated incidents of voter fraud to delegitimize the result of an election.”
The changes will not apply to regular posts by normal Facebook users, but those posts will receive misleading content warnings according to Facebook’s content policies. The announcement from Facebook came the same day that Facebook took down a separate advertisement by the Trump campaign which some claimed linked refugee admissions to coronavirus spread.
A Facebook spokesperson told the Hill: “We rejected these ads because we don’t allow claims that people’s physical safety, health, or survival is threatened by people on the basis of their national origin or immigration status.”
The Trump campaign commented on the ad removal simply stating: “When it comes to leading our nation through this crisis and delivering the Great American Comeback, Americans can rely on President Trump.”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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