Facebook Inc. will soon be offering users the option to see less ads for political and social issues in their feeds in response to popular demand. The new setting, now available in Instagram, is part of an effort to give people greater influence over what they see ahead of the U.S. presidential election in 2020.
Facebook announced Thursday the new option in a more comprehensive update on the service's political ads. However, the company has not announced significant changes or restrictions on the ad-targeting tools available for political campaigns. In recent months, following restrictions from rivals Google and Twitter Inc., Facebook has discussed potential changes to ad targeting internally. After "extensive outreach and consultation" with third parties, the company said in a blog post, the social network decided not to change its targeting methods, which can be very granular and precise.
Facebook also sticks to a controversial policy that stipulates that governments, including political ads, do not check content from the site. It has repeatedly claimed that it does not want to be the last word in the world of political theater on what is true or false.
The company wrote that its policies were based on "the principle that people should be able to hear from those who want to lead them, warts and everything, and that what they say should be examined and debated in public."
For months, Facebook has been at the center of the debate on online political advertising. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg stood firm in his conviction that Facebook should not check the facts of politicians, a position that troubled Democratic presidential aspirations such as Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Despite changes from others in the industry, Facebook also decided against ad-targeting restrictions. For example, Twitter has completely banned some political ads and limits targeting for other advertisements that focus on social issues. "When people decide to follow an account or retweet, a political message will reach," Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO, explained at the time. "Paying for reach eliminates that decision, forcing people to receive highly optimized and targeted political messages. We believe that money should not compromise this decision.
Google has banned political campaigns based on political affiliation from targeting ads to consumers.
Zuckerberg has repeatedly called on the U.S. government to step in and restrict online political advertisements in the expectation of implementing some form of industry standard. This Thursday, Facebook did that again. "In the end, we don't think private companies should make decisions about political ads," the social giant wrote on his blog. "We believe that Facebook and other businesses are better subject to democratically accountable rules on this."
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