Biden demands Facebook change its political speech rules

Biden demands Facebook change its political speech rules

Former Vice President Joe Biden's presidential campaign published an open letter to Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday, calling for the company to fact-check politicians' ads and remove misinformation.

This report produced by Chris Dignam.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden called out Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday, demanding that Facebook crack down on misinformation and fact-check politicians' ads.

In an open letter to Zuckerberg, the Biden campaign encouraged supporters to use the hashtag #MOVEFASTFIXIT, a play on Facebook's "move fast and break things" motto... ... and sign a petition for Facebook to remove false information, fact-check political ads in the two weeks leading up to the November election and enforce clear rules that apply to everyone, including President Donald Trump — that "prohibit threatening behavior and lies about how to participate in the election." The letter puts more pressure on Facebook to change its policies on political ads and speech, after its smaller rival Twitter began fact-checking the president's tweets, including a post from Trump about mail-in ballots that Twitter labeled with an exclamation point and a message urging users to “get the facts.” Zuckerberg said last week that the company would review its content policies, which currently exempt politicians' content from its third-party fact-checking program.

But in a response to the Biden campaign on Thursday, Facebook said "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... 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."