Facebook’s New Sanctions On Political Ads Week Before Elections

Facebook, through CEO, announced earlier in the week that Facebook will ban all new political ads on their site a week before the November 3 election. This is a catalyst to the notion that Social Media and especially the gargantuan cooperation headed by Zuckerberg, has immense power to influence a whole lot during the elections.

The implications and intricacies of this policy are such that any political advertisements submitted on or after October 27 in the run-up to the anticipated election are unlikely to be accepted. However, ads that have been placed before this period will continue to be there. This includes political messages and reports that have been published and are on the site before this period.

The postulation backs up the cause to this effect that social media is a mighty weapon that can easily help to sway voters (and largely undecided voters). According to a report published by Cambridge Analytica, in 2016, a lot of positive and ostentatious messages were used to convince voters to vote for Donald Trump.

It is also a thesis that grouping certain people according to their characteristics, online allows ads to target such groups and equally convince them to vote in a certain pattern. Say, for example, pet lovers or shoppers at certain online stores.

Facebook also duly added along with the new sanctions that it will link any such posts from the candidates declaring any outcome of the final results before they are out with passageways to the vote counts at Reuters & The National Election Pool.

Facebook went on to add that it will expunge any posts that unambiguously mention that voters will catch COVID 19 by going to vote in the polling stations. Posts that dissuade voting due to the pandemic’s risk will be permitted but with a link to authoritative information attached. It is important to note that one cannot buy adverts from Facebook to help spread this message.

Posts that disavow or abrogate the election results and cast aspersions on it will still be allowed. They will, however, come attached with more information about voting authoritative sources.

Zuckerberg, in his address on his Facebook post, mentioned that voting has been done during pandemics before and that it will take a concerted effort on every delegation to ensure a successful process.