Facebook To Reject Political Ads That Prematurely Claim Election Victory

Facebook said Wednesday it would not allow people to run ads on its services that declare victory in the November election before news organizations have declared a winner.

“Facebook will be rejecting political ads that claim victory before the results of the 2020 election have been declared,” company spokesman Andy Stone said in a tweet.

The tech company has been fine-tuning its rules for what politicians, campaigns and potentially others can say on Facebook out of concern that people could try to manipulate its online social network to spread false information or sow unrest.

Read more from NBC News:

Partner of Kenosha shooting victim sues Facebook, shooter, militias
As Americans worry about mailed ballots, most states now offer a way to track them
Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf calls whistleblower claims of manipulating intelligence reports ‘patently false’

Facebook has said it has signed partnerships with the Reuters news agency and with the National Election Pool, a consortium of news organizations including NBC News, to determine winners in the election.

Susan Rice, former national security adviser in the Obama White House, is among the people who have expressed concern that President Donald Trump could claim victory wrongly and prematurely.

For non-advertising posts that seek to declare victory, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this month that the company would add a label to such posts noting that official results were not yet in.

The news organizations, Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post, would “provide authoritative information about election results.”

– CNBC