Facebook will continue allowing untruthful political ads, claiming lawmakers, not private companies, should regulate them

Facebook will not limit the targeting of, or fact check, political ads, even if those ads are untrue. The decision comes despite mounting pressure to change its policy in order to fight misinformation, like competitors have done. In October, Twitter banned political advertising outright, while the following month, Facebook’s biggest advertising rival, Google, limited the way political ads can be targeted.

The social media giant said it decided not to stamp out political ads that lie because it’s uncomfortable with the idea of private companies making such decisions. Instead, a blog post published yesterday explained, Facebook users can instead opt to simply “see fewer political and social issue ads”.