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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday June 18 2020, @06:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the what's-the-catch? dept.

Facebook to let users turn off political adverts:

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg says users will be able to turn off political adverts on the social network in the run-up to the 2020 US election.

In a piece written for USA Today newspaper, he also says he hopes to help four million Americans sign up as new voters.

Facebook has faced heavy criticism for allowing adverts from politicians that contain false information.

Rival social platform Twitter banned political advertising last October.

"For those of you who've already made up your minds and just want the election to be over, we hear you -- so we're also introducing the ability to turn off seeing political ads," Mr Zuckerberg wrote.

Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram will give users the option to turn off political adverts when they appear or they can block them using the settings features.

Users that have blocked political adverts will also be able to report them if they continue to appear.

The feature, which will start rolling out on Wednesday, allows users to turn off political, electoral and social issue adverts from candidates and other organisations that have the "Paid for" political disclaimer.

The company said it plans to make the feature available to all US users over the next few weeks and will offer it in other countries this autumn.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @01:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @01:25PM (#1010020)

    Of course, political ads of all kinds can be worked around any direct "political" classification. Make a video ad for a truck, and then throw in a few comments on "your own hard work" and "as long as taxes are low" or "drill here and drill now for cheap gas". Voila, you claim to sell a truck but it's a conservative political ad. Or make a video ad for a truck, and then throw in a few comments on "built by organized labor", "used by the strong people in the Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craft Workers", and maybe "if the minimum wage was higher, maybe more good people could afford this fine product". Voila, you claim to sell a truck but it's a liberal political ad.

    If anything, this makes political advertising worse because the users will have to pay more attention to realize they're being hit with propaganda. All of us like to think we're too smart to be tricked by that kind of thing, but we're all wrong. The best option is to stop using Facebook.