Facebook is considering reining in political advertisements on its platforms after a swath of companies recently pulled content in protest of lax moderation standards.
Discussions are taking place inside the tech behemoth regarding whether to impose a ban on the platform ahead of the 2020 election, according to multiple reports on Friday.
Proponents say the move would help mitigate the spread of misinformation, while critics suggest it will make it harder for candidates with less money to reach their target audiences. Several major companies, including Unilever and Verizon, have already pulled advertising from the site that has billions of monthly active users.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly stated that he does not believe Facebook should be the arbiter of truth, but other tech platforms, such as Twitter, have already moved to wipe their platforms clean of political advertising in the last year.
Facebook profits off the more than 100,000 political advertisements that run every day on its platform. There has yet to be a detailed report on how a shift in policy might affect the company’s bottom line.
A representative from Facebook declined to comment about a possible change in policy when reached by Bloomberg.
