But changes announced Thursday will allow users to exercise control over more of the ads they see.
Facebook on Thursday defied public calls to adopt significant limits on political advertising ahead of the 2020 presidential election, opting instead to introduce changes that allow users to control more of the ads they see.
The company’s new rules will continue to allow politicians to make false claims in their paid political posts and preserve the powerful yet controversial targeting tools that long have helped Democrats and Republicans deliver messaging to narrowly segmented audiences on the social networking site.
Pressure to rethink its approach to political ads came from a wide array of federal regulators, digital experts and privacy advocates, as well as some of Facebook’s own employees. They argued that the company’s policies coarsened the American electorate and exposed users to serious risks, including viral disinformation, which malicious actors could pay to promote on the site. Continue reading.