Facebook will block new political ads a week before US election

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has posted today from his own account that, during the week leading up to the Nov. 4 presidential elections, no new political ads will be accepted by the social media platform, according to Fox News.

This decision was made, according to Zuckerberg, because of concerns regarding fake news right before the election and not enough time to fact-check ads properly.  Zuckerberg said:

"It's important that campaigns can run get out the vote campaigns, and I generally believe the best antidote to bad speech is more speech, but in the final days of an election there may not be enough time to contest new claims."

"So in the week before the election, we won't accept new political or issue ads. Advertisers will be able to continue running ads they started running before the final week and adjust the targeting for those ads, but those ads will already be published transparently in our Ads Library so anyone, including fact-checkers and journalists, can scrutinize them."

"This election is not going to be business as usual. We all have a responsibility to protect our democracy. That means helping people register and vote, clearing up confusion about how this election will work, and taking steps to reduce the chances of violence and unrest."

There is widespread concern about potentially damaging misinformation influencing election results this November.  There has been mounting worry that foreign countries such as Russia Iran and China have been acting in an attempt to influence foreign voters since at least as far back as the year 2016.

The FBI in the US is currently investigating multiple instances of online fraud and attempted fraud in an attempt to sway elections at every level of its government. In at least once instance, they have unearthed fake news outlets complete with fake staff. Facebook is cooperating fully with the FBI in this and other ongoing investigations.