Banning Micro-Targeting Won’t Solve Facebook’s Political Ads Dilemma

Since late October, Facebook has come under scrutiny for changing its policies surrounding political ads. Previously, to run a political ad on Facebook, the ad had to be factually correct. Facebook would review political ads before they went live, and on an ongoing basis once they’re put live, removing any that it found to contain misinformation.

Facebook repealed that policy in late October, arguing that it doesn’t want to censor political speech. Zuckerberg argued for the policy change by explaining that as a private company, Facebook wants to moderate content as little as possible.

Facebook’s argument also hinges on the fact that other forms of ads, such as those that appear in TV and print, aren’t subject to fact-checking. If these aren’t subject to fact-checking, the argument goes, then why should Facebook have to fact check ads that are run on its platform?

Facebook’s position on political fact-checking has come under criticism for a number of different reasons. The main argument against it is, unsurprisingly, that it allows disinformation to spread freely over the platform.