CNN chief rips Facebook policy on political ads

CNN President Jeff Zucker on Thursday denounced Facebook for what he called its “absolutely ludicrous” policy that exempts political advertisements from fact-checking.

“[Facebook] took so much heat, rightly so, for what happened in 2016 and for the political advertising that aired on there,” Zucker said during a CNN Citizen conference. “And now they say that political advertising is just a tiny part of their business, but that they’re not going to fact-check anything and they’re going to take all political advertising whether it is true or not. I think that is absolutely ludicrous and I think that they should be called out.”

Zucker went on to cite his network’s policy surrounding advertisements, saying that CNN has already turned down two ads from President Trump’s reelection campaign because they didn’t meet its standards.

“We have an obligation at CNN, if a political ad comes along and it’s not true, we’re not going to take it,” he said. “We’ve turned down I think two ads from the Trump campaign. We’ve taken two. We don’t have anything against taking those ads. But we’re only going to take them when they’re truthful.”