SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — Facebook says it will block ads from foreign state media during the U.S. election campaign, and allow users to hide paid-for political messages.
The move comes with Facebook under growing pressure over its hands-off approach to misinformation and inflammatory posts — including from Donald Trump — and criticism that it turned a blind eye to foreign interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Facebook's head of global affairs acknowledged the company fell short during the contentious election in which it has acknowledged Russia-backed content reached as many as 126 million Americans on its platform.
Former British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, writing in the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper Wednesday, said the company would be "blocking all ads in the U.S. during the election period from state-controlled media organizations from other countries."
Anyone running political ads on the platform would have to be authorized to do so, Clegg said, adding that between March and May Facebook had stopped "more than 750,000 political ads targeting the U.S. from running because the advertiser had not completed the authorization process."
He said Facebook has more than 35,000 people working on safety and security issues, three times the number of four years ago.
In a separate opinion piece, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he wanted to use the vast reach of his company for good in the November election.
The threat to democracy "is real and ongoing, but our systems are more prepared than ever," he said.
Announcing a campaign aimed at getting 4 million people registered to vote, Zuckerberg said Facebook was creating a new hub with "authoritative information, including how and when to vote, as well as details about voter registration, voting by mail and information about early voting."
Facebook announced the voter hub at the beginning of June, and promised to review policies that led to the decision not to moderate controversial messages.
For users who have already made up their minds "and just want the election to be over," Zuckerberg wrote, the network is "also introducing the ability to turn off seeing political ads."
The feature will be rolled out beginning on June 24 and will allow users to turn off political, electoral and social issue ads.
Zuckerberg has been strongly criticized for his company's decision not to moderate controversial, incendiary and false posts by President Trump.
Twitter's decision in May to hide one of Trump's tweets for "glorifying violence" exposed turmoil at Facebook, with employees rebelling against Zuckerberg's refusal to sanction false and inflammatory posts by Trump.
But writing in USA Today, he again defended his network's guidelines.
Facebook has "rules against speech that will cause imminent physical harm or suppress voting, and no one is exempt from them," he wrote.
"But accountability only works if we can see what those seeking our votes are saying, even if we viscerally dislike what they say."
The best way to hold politicians accountable is by voting, Zuckerberg wrote.
© Agence France-Presse
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