Google to Suspend Political Ads Temporarily
[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Facebook, the world's largest social networking service (SNS), has decided to extend its policy of banning political ads for one week after the U.S. presidential election to prevent election-related confusion. Google is also reportedly planning to extend its policy of suspending election-related ads after voting ends for the time being.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 11th (local time), Facebook announced to advertisers that it will extend the suspension of political ads for about a month, which was initially set for one week after the presidential election voting ended.
Facebook explained, "Although various media outlets are predicting the presidential candidate, we judged it important to prevent confusion or abuse on our platform until it becomes certain."
Facebook added, "We hope to resume ads as soon as possible."
Earlier, on the 7th of last month, Facebook announced that it would temporarily suspend election, political, and social issue-related ads within the U.S. even after the presidential election voting ended, to reduce the possibility of ad misuse and social confusion.
This move by Facebook comes amid the Trump camp's refusal to concede defeat in the election and concerns that false information related to the election is circulating on SNS, fueling social unrest.
The Biden camp criticized Facebook for not taking appropriate measures against such false claims and accused SNS of undermining democracy.
Google is also reportedly maintaining its existing policy of indefinitely suspending election-related ad placements after voting ends.
Twitter, YouTube, and others have implemented policies to regulate content containing false information, but there are criticisms that they are not adequately responding.
In YouTube's case, it has introduced rules banning the sharing of content containing clear false claims, but it has not fully expanded the application of these rules.
Twitter labeled two tweets posted by President Trump on the 10th, claiming election fraud, as "disputed" according to internal policies, but each of these tweets was shared more than 80,000 times overnight.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
