DNC Demands Facebook ‘Fact Check’ Trump Ads

The DNC believes Facebook is not being anti-Trump enough, and wants the social network to “fact check” ads from the president’s campaign.

CNN reported that DNC Chief Executive Seema Nanda said that she was “deeply disappointed in Facebook’s decision to exempt statements from political candidates from its fact-checking policy” after the social network announced it would not fact-check politicians.

“We know that Trump has an utter disregard for the truth,” Nanda told CNN.

“Social media platforms have a responsibility to protect our democracy and counter disinformation online. This is a serious missed opportunity by Facebook.”

This came after Facebook said it is not the job of a tech company to “referee political debate.”

The comments, from former British Liberal Democrat leader and arch-Europhile Nick Clegg, now a VP at Facebook, were a rare moment of self-restraint for the company. They were published in full on Facebook’s official blog.

“We don’t believe, however, that it’s an appropriate role for us to referee political debates and prevent a politician’s speech from reaching its audience and being subject to public debate and scrutiny,” said Clegg. “That’s why Facebook exempts politicians from our third-party fact-checking program. We have had this policy on the books for over a year now, posted publicly on our site under our eligibility guidelines. This means that we will not send organic content or ads from politicians to our third-party fact-checking partners for review.”

However, Clegg added that even this voluntary policy of restraint has its limits, stating that the company would suppress posts from politicians in some circumstances.

“When a politician shares previously debunked content including links, videos and photos, we plan to demote that content, display related information from fact-checkers, and reject its inclusion in advertisements,” said Clegg.