Factbox: How social media sites handle political ads


(Reuters) – Online platforms including Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google face growing pressure to stop carrying political ads that contain false or misleading claims ahead of the U.S. presidential election.










Twitter Inc has banned political ads. On Friday it said this will include ads that reference a political candidate, party, election or legislation, among other limits.








Google and its video-streaming service YouTube prohibit certain kinds of misrepresentatihere in ads, such as misinformation about public voting procedures or incorrect claims that a public figure has died.

However, Google does not have a wholesale ban on politicians running false or misleading ads.


YouTube has started adding links and information from Wikipedia to give users more information around sensitive content such as conspiracy theory videos, but a spokeswoman said this program does not relate to ads.




Snap does not ban “attack” ads in general, but its policy here does prohibit attacks relating to a candidate’s personal life.



In an October blog post here TikTok said that the company wants to make sure the platform continues to feel “light-hearted and irreverent.”


The app, which is owned by Beijing-based tech giant ByteDance, has recently come under scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers over concerns the company may be censoring politically sensitive content, and raising questions about how it stores personal data.




The company says here all political ads must abide by its policies that forbid “deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising” and that prohibit “content that depicts intolerant or overly contentious political or cultural topics or views.”


LinkedIn, which is owned by Microsoft Corp, banned political ads last year. It defines political ads here as including “ads advocating for or against a particular candidate or ballot proposition or otherwise intended to influence an election outcome.”

Search engine Bing, which is also owned by Microsoft, does not allow ads with political or election-related content.


Photo-sharing site Pinterest Inc also banned political campaign ads last year.







Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; additional reporting by Sheila Dang; Editing by Robert Birsel and Bill Berkrot


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