Washington: Facebook announced on Wednesday that it is extending its post-election ban on political advertisements which it said is likely to last another month.
This announcement by Facebook has raised concerns from campaigns and groups who are eager to reach voters for key Georgia races in January that will decide control of the Senate, Al Jazeera reported.
The ban, is Facebook effort at combating misinformation and other abuses on its site, and was supposed to last for about a week with the option of being extended if the need arose. Alphabet Inc’s Google has also stuck with its post-election political ad ban.
Facebook confirmed the extension in a blog post: “The temporary pause for ads about politics and social issues in the US continues to be in place as part of our ongoing efforts to protect the election. Advertisers can expect this to last another month, though there may be an opportunity to resume these ads sooner.”
Several false and baseless claims about the election reverberated on social media this week as President Donald Trump challenged the validity of the outcome, even as state officials reported no significant irregularities and legal experts cautioned he had little chance of overturning Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s victory.
For example in one Facebook group created on Sunday, which rapidly saw it growing to nearly 400,000 members by Wednesday, saw members calling for a nationwide recount swapped unfounded accusations about alleged election fraud and state vote counts every few seconds.
