Facebook, Plagued by Political Ad Controversy, Finally Changes Policy

▲Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook [Image source=AP News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Facebook has announced a new policy allowing users to block political ads themselves.

On the 16th (local time), Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, published a commentary containing this information in USA Today.

Zuckerberg stated, "We have received feedback from voters expressing fatigue from numerous political ads," adding, "Accordingly, we have decided to introduce a feature that allows users to filter political ads themselves." He continued, "However, we will still encourage voters to participate in elections."

Facebook has already applied this policy to some users and plans to extend it to all U.S. users within the next few weeks. This fall, the policy will be expanded to countries outside the U.S. as well.

Facebook has faced criticism over its political ad policies for several months. The company has maintained its stance of not fact-checking posts made by politicians. Zuckerberg has repeatedly emphasized that "Facebook's principles and policies support free speech" and that social networking services (SNS) should not act as arbiters of truth.

However, Facebook faced intense backlash both internally and externally when it took no action against President Donald Trump's controversial post during protests sparked by the Floyd incident, which stated, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts."

Along with this new political ad policy, Facebook announced it will help 4 million people participate in voting through its Voting Information Center. The Voting Information Center will be publicly accessible at the top of Facebook's News Feed and Instagram, providing information on how and when to vote, registration methods, mail-in voting, and early voting procedures.

In his commentary published in USA Today, Zuckerberg said, "I believe Facebook has a responsibility to encourage voting."

Some interpret Facebook's new political ad policy as a response to a public letter sent on the 11th by Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden urged Zuckerberg in the letter to block false information in election-related ads in advance. He proposed that fact-checking should be conducted before political ads are displayed starting two weeks before the election. This was essentially a request aimed at President Trump to implement regulatory measures on social media platforms.

Former Vice President Biden emphasized on Twitter, "We witnessed what can happen when social media platforms are left unchecked in 2016 (during the last election when President Trump was elected)," adding, "We cannot allow that to happen again this year."

Meanwhile, Facebook's competitor Twitter has already banned political ads since October of last year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.