Warren Escalates Fight With Facebook Over Political Ads
October 12 2019 - 10:54PM
Dow Jones News
By Patience Haggin
Sen. Elizabeth Warren sought to turn Facebook Inc.'s political
ad policy against it, running an ad with a false claim about Chief
Executive Mark Zuckerberg to highlight complaints about the
social-media giant's handling of misinformation.
The ad, which the Warren presidential campaign ran on Facebook,
says Mr. Zuckerberg endorsed President Trump's re-election, and
shows an image of the two men shaking hands. The ad's text then
quickly acknowledges that the endorsement claim is false, and
criticizes Facebook's policy, announced last month, that it won't
fact-check speech or advertising by politicians.
The move escalates Democrats' feud with Facebook following its
refusal to remove an ad this month from Mr. Trump's re-election
campaign, run on multiple platforms, that made an unsubstantiated
claim about former Vice President Joe Biden's role in the ouster of
a Ukrainian prosecutor. Facebook denied the Biden campaign's
request to remove the ad, which the campaign said was false,
because the ad complied with Facebook's policies, the company
said.
"What Zuckerberg *has* done is given Donald Trump free rein to
lie on his platform -- and then to pay Facebook gobs of money to
push out their lies to American voters," Ms. Warren wrote in her
new ad.
The Trump campaign has said its ads are accurate.
Facebook responded to Ms. Warren's ad on Saturday with a post on
its Twitter account addressed to the senator, saying that broadcast
stations have aired the Trump campaign's ad nearly 1,000 times "as
required by law."
The Federal Communications Commission "doesn't want broadcast
companies censoring candidates' speech. We agree it's better to let
voters -- not companies -- decide," Facebook's tweet said. The
company declined to comment further.
Facebook isn't covered by the FCC rules governing political ads
on broadcast networks.
Ms. Warren's campaign began running the Facebook ad on Thursday.
It has spent $3,400 to $9,486 on the ad, which has been viewed
180,000 to 750,000 times, according to Facebook's Ad Library.
The campaign declined to confirm the spending or view numbers.
Ms. Warren followed up Saturday with a series of tweets criticizing
the Facebook ad policy.
The criticism was the latest volley in Ms. Warren's battle with
Facebook on a range of issues. Ms. Warren has advocated breaking up
the company on antitrust grounds, a position that Mr. Zuckerberg
described recently as "an existential threat" that he vowed the
company would fight.
Ms. Warren has taken out a series of Facebook ads accusing Mr.
Zuckerberg of "illegal anti-competitive practices," according to
the company's ad library.
The fight over political ads has highlighted the different
standards that exist between tech platforms and traditional media
companies. Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal stopped running the ad
about Mr. Biden and Ukraine on its cable networks. CNN has refused
to run it. Meanwhile, several networks -- such as Discovery Inc.'s
Investigation Discovery and Fox Corp.'s Fox News -- have aired it,
according to iSpot data.
Fox Corp. and Wall Street Journal parent News Corp share common
ownership.
Write to Patience Haggin at patience.haggin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 12, 2019 22:39 ET (02:39 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024