For months, is discussed about the handling of the large Online platforms with political Ads, and the companies have very different positions. The short message service Twitter announced to allow no political advertising, the Internet group Google allows such Ads further, but has restricted options, with them targeting people, and thus less attractive.
Roland Lindner
economic correspondent in New York.
F. A. Z. Twitter
Facebook has the most lenient point of view and for a lot of criticism plugged. Facebook shows more political advertising, even if it contains false statements. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that he wanted to promote freedom of expression.
but Now, the company is contrary to his critics, at least a little. It has announced to give its users now the Option of political Ads off. This will initially be in America, with a view to the upcoming presidential elections possible in the future, other countries are introduced.
selection can be directly on the display hit
users of the advertising to be able to switch off either your account settings or directly from political Ads on Facebook and the companies belonging to the service of Instagram from. Facebook announced in January, to give its users more control over political Ads. With the possibility of advertising to hide, the group is now a step.
The measure is part of a larger Facebook Initiative to the coming elections in America. The social network has announced a “information center”, where users share facts about the elections can be found, such as voter registration or absentee ballots. The target was to register about the Facebook platforms, four million voters. In the elections of 2016, you have helped to register two million voters.
Though Zuckerberg has now made the political View of a part of compromise, he is not moved away from its original Position too much. In a guest contribution to the newspaper “USA Today” wrote he, you should trust voters to make up their own minds, and therefore, Facebook should remain an “open platform”. The debate about political advertising cooked last autumn, after the American President, it switched to a Facebook-display with false information about Joe Biden, his expected rival in the coming elections. Employees of Biden’s campaign had pressed Facebook to remove the promotional video, were fired but. Biden called on Zuckerberg just last week, in an open letter, not to allow politicians with no “paid for false information,” and more. The former Vice President is not, of course, Viewing all against Facebook and you will turn in the recent time, in increasing frequency. His campaign has recently issued, within a week, five million dollars for advertising on Facebook, even more than Donald Trump.
