After Google, Facebook Lifts Ban on Political Advertising in US

Facebook said that political, electoral and social issue advertisements will be resumed in the US from 4 March.

Facebook has lifted its ban on political advertising.

(Photo: iStock)

Social media giant Facebook on Wednesday, 3 March, said that it will lift the moratorium on US political advertisements, ending a ban streak that had been in place since the US presidential elections.

Facebook INC, through a blog post, said that political, electoral and social issue advertisements will be resumed in the the United States on 4 March. “We put this temporary ban in place after the November 2020 election to avoid confusion or abuse following Election Day,” read a statement on Facebook’s blog post.

The leading social network platform also noted that its platform requires “authorisation and transparency, not just for political and electoral ads, but also for social issue ads” and Facebook's systems do not distinguish between these categories.

Facebook noted that in the last couple of months it has learnt more about political ads. “We plan to use the coming months to take a closer look at how these ads work on our service to see where further changes may be merited,” added the statement.

Earlier this week, Google also lifted its ban on political advertising. The search engine had previously termed 2020 election as a ‘sensitive event,’ and had imposed the ban on political advertising on 14 January, citing the violence at the US Capitol.

Meanwhile, Facebook announced last month that it would moderate the political content on its News Feed. The test was initially launched in Indonesia, Brazil and Canada.