Biden calls on Facebook to rethink fact-checking policy before US election
Democratic US presidential candidate Joe Biden has called for Facebook to fact check political advertisements on its platform ahead of the November ballot.
In an open letter addressed to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg, Biden said there should be a two-week pre-election period during which all political ads must be fact-checked before they are allowed to appear on Facebook.
His letter comes a week after Zuckerberg promised to review its content policies, following backlash against Facebook for not taking action on a post by US President Donald Trump that Twitter deemed a violation of the latter’s rules.
Biden’s demands also included that Facebook should immediately remove posts that include misinformation, and that there should be clear rules “applied to everyone, including Donald Trump — that prohibit threatening behaviour and lies about how to participate in the election”.
In response to the letter from Biden’s campaign, Facebook said in a statement:
“Two weeks ago the President of the United States issued an executive order directing federal agencies to prevent social media sites from engaging in activities like fact-checking political statements. This week, the Democratic candidate for President started a petition calling on us to do the exact opposite.
“Just as they have done with broadcast networks — where the US government prohibits rejecting politicians’ campaign ads — the people’s elected representatives should set the rules, and we will follow them. There is an election coming in November and we will protect political speech, even when we strongly disagree with it.”