Advertisement

Facebook will block ads claiming victory ahead of official results

The company has clarified its September 3rd policy position.

yorkfoto via Getty Images

Contrary to previous reports, a Facebook rep has confirmed that the social media site will not, in fact, allow ads claiming victory for either the Trump or Biden campaigns to run on election night.

In a September 3rd blog post, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg laid out a new policy banning political ads from being run on the social media site for the entire week leading up to November 3rd, election day. However, that policy did not, according to a recent Fast Company post, prevent campaigns from running new ones starting on November 4th. This would enable either or both presidential campaigns to claim victory and saturate the market with misleading advertisements. Facebook has since clarified in a public statement that such actions are also verboten.

“We will be rejecting political ads that claim victory before the results of the 2020 election have been declared,” Facebook comms rep, Andy Stone tweeted Wednesday. Additionally, the company will apply “information labels” to any ad that calls into question the legitimacy of the voting process or election outcome — ie charges of vote rigging, poll intimidation or voter suppression.