United States Republican Senator Ted Cruz has recently criticized Facebook's move to ban new political advertisements on its social media platform one week before the 2020 elections. The politician argued that the site's decision would severely impact votes by denying communication between candidates and US citizens.
Manipulating America's votes
In a press release on Friday, Cruz said that the social media site's move to block the publishing of new political ads during the week before the US elections is the online platform's latest attempt to manipulate American citizens' votes.
According to Fox News, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the new policy on Thursday, which would effectively block out new political advertisements while allowing pre-existing ones to spread.
In a post on Twitter, Zuckerberg wrote that he believes bad speech is best countered with more speech. However, he added that the US elections' final days might result in less time to contest new claims.
Trump's administration has continuously warned the nation of the potential threat of fraudulent mail-in voting that could jeopardize the entire electoral process. Despite the claims, Facebook suggested that the accusations were meant to delegitimize the voting process. Both Republican and Democratic politicians have supported the safety and security of mail-in voting.
In the Twitter post, the Facebook CEO also said that the social media platform would be adding an information label to any content that attempts to delegitimize the election results or the credibility of voting processes, including claims that lawful methods could lead to fraud. Zuckerberg added that the label would provide social media users with necessary authoritative information.
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However, Cruz continued to claim that Facebook's decision did not provide support to democracy. The Republican added that the social media platforms attempt to label statements it finds inaccurate only furthers its own agenda.
The senator said all of Facebook's moves are only meant to influence the American voting process's results. Cruz reiterated his previous statements that mail-voting fraud was an undeniable fact and that Facebook will move to label it as disinformation while allowing the left to spread conspiracy theories about the voting system.
Targeted policies
Facebook's move to ban new ads is a narrow process that focuses on political content submitted the week before the election while allowing those that have been submitted before October 27, as reported bt CNBC.
The social media platform has also said it will start to link any post from a political candidate who attempts to declare their victory before final tallies of votes are out to Reuters and National Election Pool vote count pages.
Until recently, Zuckerberg has been adamant about allowing the existence of political ads on both Facebook and Instagram despite some of the content spreading false information. Several other social media platforms, including Twitter and Pinterest, have moved to ban all political ads on their sites.
Facebook will continue to allow posts that feature delegitimizing content about election results or voting processes such as mail-in voting but will label them with additional information about voting in general.
Zuckerberg added that Facebook would continue to expand its policies to support the prevention of posts that urge violence or pushes harm to be enacted on election officials.
