As the US presidential elections approach, social media outlets are starting to take action against future political #ads expected to pop-up.
Facebook announced that it took several steps made to address the concerns regarding future #election interference on the platform. According to its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, the company won't post new political ads during the presidential campaign's final week.
Facebook will remove the posts that state that people will get a #COVID-19 infection if they vote, and it will label any fabricated post regarding the election and voting. Labels will be added to candidates’ posts if they claim victory before the official results. However, it will continue to run ads purchased before the decisive week, even though they might contain misinformation.
But Facebook is not the only company to do so. Pinterest stated that it wouldn't show any election-related ads or content that includes keywords such as the candidates' name, "vote,” and “polling place.” Unlike Facebook, the photo-sharing website is only strengthening its two-year-old policy of banning political ads.
Pinterest will redirect users to vote.org, a third-party website where they register to vote and access information about the votes' status, ballots, and many more. Also, if its employees want to vote or be poll workers, they will receive the money equivalent of a full working day.
In Pinterest’s case, the market reacted negatively to the news, closing yesterday’s trading session lower by 7.42%, and during today’s pre-market session, it lost more than 3%. Facebook also had the same reaction from the market. Yesterday it lost 3.76%, while during today’s session, its stock slipped over 2%.
Read about the actions Facebook took against the Russian Interference here!
Sources: thestreet.com, edition.cnn.com, finance.yahoo.com