newsletter

A controversial Facebook policy faces a major stress test ahead of UK elections

We begin and end this week’s newsletter with a series of hashtags.

#GetBrexitDone, #RealChange, #StopBrexit — in case you hadn’t seen, it is election season (again) in the United Kingdom. 

Ahead of December 12 polls, which could determine the manner in which Britain will exit from the European Union, the country’s leading politicians will visit TV studios and pose awkwardly with nurses, teachers, and factory employees. The politicians will hope to avoid consuming greasy products on camera, like former Labour Party leader Ed Miliband (during local elections in 2014) who had his campaign derailed for 48 hours after struggling with a bacon sandwich.

More seriously, the election also marks an important test for Facebook’s controversial policy allowing politicians to run false ads on the platform. According to Facebook, the social media giant will not fact-check ads run by British political parties and the thousands of other candidates running for office in the House of Commons. But ads from other political groups, the pro-Brexit group Leave.EU, for example, will be fact-checked.