Internal technical issues had intervened in the delivery of some ads from the Donald Trump and Joe Biden campaigns, Facebook Inc. divulged on Thursday. The social network will implement changes to resolve such glitches preceding the November 3 United States presidential election.
The social media platform's admission followed criticism from the Biden party regarding how thousands of its advertisements had been barred.
Facebook stated on Thursday that its system's glitches resulted in "unanticipated issues." The Mark Zuckerberg-led company released a statement that the hiccups in its systems resulted in ads from a broad range of advertisers to be halted improperly.
The website's policy to ban new ads a week before the presidential election is part of its eradication of misinformation commencing on Tuesday. Pre-approved advertisements should still be displayed, reported Yahoo.
Biden's digital campaign manager denounced the circumstances.
Facebook apologized in a blog, "We have identified a number of unanticipated issues affecting campaigns of both political parties. Some were technical problems. Others were because advertisers did not understand the instructions we provided and when and how to make changes to ad targeting. While this impacted a small proportion of the ads about politics and social issues in our system, we regret any disruption in the delivery of these ads."
According to Biden's campaign, the advertisements have been barred since Tuesday. The ads have cost the Democratic presidential nominee half a million dollars in projected donations and altercation of the advertising plan prior to November 3.
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Facebook instigated the self-imposed ban on new political advertisements on Monday in an effort to limit the potential prevalence of misinformation surrounding the election. The policy procured new disapproval this week for the technical glitch that wiped out ads already running from Facebook's system. Aside from adversely affecting the two campaigns, the issue also cut off certain messages to voters at the most untimely moment.
Facebook made the announcement in early September that it would not accept new advertisements in the week prior to the presidential election. On Thursday, according to Facebook, the restriction commenced on Tuesday at 12:01 AM PT. Some ads were restricted or paused. Aside from the technical issues, there was a lack of clarity in communicating the election week's nuances.
The company stated that the pausing of some advertisements was due to advertisers making changes to their target market shortly prior to the deadline. This had created new advertisements that were required to go through approval and delivery before the passing of the deadline.
According to Rob Flaherty, Biden campaign's digital director, they have no understanding of the scale of the issues, the audiences affected, and their plan to settle it. They ended up five days out from Election Day, unable to ensure that their ads will run properly or if their rivals are being provided an unfair, partisan advantage.
The issue was connected to the system's capacity for detection if an advertisement had been properly recorded in a searchable library.
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