By
Bhushan Akolkar
April 25th, 2024
For months, Facebook has endured criticism for its policy that allows politicians to run political ads containing false information. Now the company will introduce a new option for users.
The CEO of the biggest social platform Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) will now allow its users to turn off seeing political ads.
This is a pretty much sensitive subject to talk about especially if we know that the United States Elections are in November this year (and that Zuckerberg likes to have intimate dinners with still actual president but ok). This is also exactly a reason why Facebook is going under criticism for months now. The company actually allows politicians to run political ads even if they contain false information on its services. The policy has been criticized by activists and by Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Rival Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR), by contrast, decided to ban political ads back in October 2019.
Zuckerberg noted:
“For those of you who’ve already made up your minds and just want the election to be over, we hear you — so we’re also introducing the ability to turn off seeing political ads. We’ll still remind you to vote.”
Zuckerberg Wants to Spread Facebook Ads Policy to Other Countries as Well
Be it as it may, users will now be able to turn off political, electoral and social issue ads from political candidates, Super PACs and “other organizations that have the ‘Paid for by’ political disclaimer on them”. The company decided to start with this feature (for now) for some users on Wednesday, and it will become available to all U.S. users during the next few weeks. Facebook said the main focus is to widen this feature to even more countries where it has administration on political ads this fall.
So. How will this look like? When users come across one of these ads, they will have an option within the ad to turn off all future political ads. Users can also immediately turn them off by heading to the settings features of Facebook and Instagram. Also, users who have decided to turn these ads off can report any ads they come across that they think inappropriate.
Zuckerberg also announced Facebook intends to help 4 million people register to vote through a new Voting Information Center that the company began working on. He also said earlier that the Voting Information Center should be on this month.
Zuck explained the Voting Information Center will be shown at the top of Facebook’s News Feed and Instagram. The center will also hold all the infos needed that explain how and when to vote, how to register, how to vote by mail, and how to vote early. The center will also include posts from state election officials and local election authorities, Zuckerberg said.
Wall Street Needs Positive News
On the investors’ front, we should mention that the company on Tuesday closed at $235.65, moving +1.35% from the previous trading session. The stock was a little behind the S&P 500‘s daily gain of 1.9%.
Wall Street will be looking for positive news from Facebook as it is expected that the company reports its earnings soon. In that report, analysts estimate that the earnings will be $1.42 per share. This would mark a year-over-year growth of 56.04%. Meanwhile, the latest consensus estimate from Zacks Equity Research is expecting the revenue to be $16.94 billion, up 0.34% from the prior-year quarter.
For the full year, Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $7.27 per share and revenue of $76.48 billion, which would show a rise of +13.06% and +8.18%, respectively, from the year before.
At the time of writing Facebook stock was down 1.47% and was trading at $232.18.