Facebook to allow political ads in the United States again

Facebook will allow political ads in the United States again. The company temporarily stopped doing so during the presidential elections in November. Advertisers can now post again after identifying themselves on the platform.

The ads will be allowed again from Thursday, Facebook writes in an update of an earlier blog post. ‘Advertising about political, electoral and social affairs’ will then resume in America. Facebook says it had received a lot of feedback and “learned a lot” about political advertising. “So we plan to use the coming months to take a closer look at how these ads work on our services, and see where further adjustments are needed,” the company wrote.

Facebook stopped showing political ads on November 3 last year. This happened in the run-up to the US presidential election. The company wanted to prevent the results of the elections from being manipulated by fake news and misinformation. Initially, the ban was supposed to last a week, but when Donald Trump tried to cast doubt on the outcome of the election, it was extended. The ban was temporarily lifted when re-elections were due to take place in the state of Georgia. Advertisers still have to identify themselves before they can buy ads, Facebook warns.