Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren took a bold swing at Facebook, announcing on Saturday that her campaign had intentionally run a fake ad in order to expose the social media platform.
“Facebook changed their ads policy to allow politicians to run ads with known lies—explicitly turning the platform into a disinformation-for-profit machine. This week, we decided to see just how far it goes,” Warren tweeted.
Facebook changed their ads policy to allow politicians to run ads with known lies—explicitly turning the platform into a disinformation-for-profit machine. This week, we decided to see just how far it goes.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 12, 2019
The Democratic presidential candidate then added a screen shot of her ad, which began by claiming that Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg had endorsed President Donald Trump. It later said that, rather than actually endorsing Trump, Facebook was “deliberately allowing a candidate to intentionally lie to the American people.”
We intentionally made a Facebook ad with false claims and submitted it to Facebook’s ad platform to see if it’d be approved. It got approved quickly and the ad is now running on Facebook. Take a look: pic.twitter.com/7NQyThWHgO
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 12, 2019
Warren went on to accuse Facebook of refusing to act because it would affect the company’s bottom line, adding, “Once again, we’re seeing Facebook throw its hands up to battling misinformation in the political discourse, because when profit comes up against protecting democracy, Facebook chooses profit.”
Once again, we’re seeing Facebook throw its hands up to battling misinformation in the political discourse, because when profit comes up against protecting democracy, Facebook chooses profit.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 12, 2019
Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign sent a letter to Facebook — along with a number of other outlets — demanding that they refuse to air ads from Trump’s reelection campaign that addressed Biden and his son Hunter and their alleged connection to Ukraine gas executives.
Facebook responded with a letter saying that they believed in allowing free speech and had no intention of censoring ad content from any candidate. “Our approach is grounded in Facebook’s fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process, and the belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there is,” the statement read. (RELATED: Facebook Won’t Bow To Biden Request, Will Allow Trump Ad On Ukraine Corruption)
The Biden campaign reportedly sent similar letters to Fox News and the New York Times, along with a number of other outlets and individual anchors, asking that they refrain from airing certain ads and from booking Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
CNN made no mention of any letter from the Biden campaign, but announced shortly after the Trump ad featuring Biden was released that the network would not air it.