While many Democratic politicians and academics are hammering Facebook for its ad policies, smaller liberal groups are breathing a sigh of relief.
Facebook had political campaigns on the edges of their seats for months while it debated internally whether it should shake up its policies and follow Google or, less likely, Twitter.on Thursday, was that Facebook wasn’t changing much. It closed the door to banning campaign ads altogether and even to limiting targeting, and it said it wouldn’t revisit its policy of exempting politicians’ ads from the usual fact-checking standard for Facebook ads.
Advertising experts took the statement as a sign that they need to prepare for the 10 months before the Nov. 3 election with the Facebook they have — not the Facebook they might want to have. Murtaugh said a “loophole” in Facebook policies would still create an uneven playing field, though, because the news media could still bombard voters with biased ads.
And by keeping its ad system more open than either Google or Twitter, he added, Facebook has established a competitive advantage that will increase its role in political dialogue. “You can’t say: ‘I’m going to delete Facebook. I’m not going to use it,’” said Adriel Hampton, a digital advertising expert who is running for governor in California in part to protest Facebook’s policy of exempting politicians from fact-checking.
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