Facebook has no intentions of altering the way it deals with political advertising, even ads that contain lies, despite being under heated scrutiny from lawmakers to address the spread of misleading information.
All of this despite the country preparing for a presidential election this year.
According to the New York Times, not only will Facebook let the lies slide, the company will not stop microtargeting for political ads, which allows campaigns to single out a select number of users, which some argue help further spread divisive information.
Rather, Facebook officials are calling for set regulations, if they are to be asked to change, noting that people should be able to hear from “those who wish to lead them, warts and all.”
“In the absence of regulation, Facebook and other companies are left to design their own policies,” Rob Leathern, Facebook’s director of product management overseeing the advertising integrity division, said in a blog post. “We have based ours on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public.”
However, according to the Times, Facebook will make a few adjustments
The Times notes:
Mr. Leathern said Facebook would add greater transparency features to its library of political advertising in the coming months, a resource for journalists and outside researchers to scrutinize the types of ads run by the campaigns.
Facebook will also include a new feature so users may choose to see fewer political ads in their feeds.
The company’s unwillingness to change anything is in stark contrast to Twitter, whose CEO Jack Dorsey announced back in October (when Facebook was knee-deep in its political ad drama) that all political advertising will be banned on the platform.