Facebook removes misleading Trump census ads

Facebook will remove misleading “census” ads from President Trump’s reelection campaign after criticism, a spokesperson told The Hill on Thursday.

“There are policies in place to prevent confusion around the official U.S. Census and this is an example of those being enforced,” the spokesperson said.

The ads, run more than a thousand times on Trump’s and Vice President Mike Pence’s accounts, urge supporters to fill out an “Official 2020 Congressional District Census.” The link attached to the post redirects users to the Trump campaign website, where they are asked to take a survey and then make a donation.

Facebook came under fire Thursday from Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and one of the architects of the platform’s policy designed to combat census misinformation for permitting the ads

 

More on Pelosi’s response… House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday slammed Facebook for allowing President Trump’s reelection campaign to run misleading advertisements about the census.

In more than a thousand ads running on the Facebook pages of Trump and Vice President Pence, the campaign is urging supporters to fill out an “Official 2020 Congressional District Census.” The link attached to the post redirects users to the Trump campaign website, where they are asked to take a survey, then make a donation.

The ads were first reported by political newsletter Popular Information.

“This is, on the part of Facebook, a robust unacceptable interference in the census,” Pelosi said at a press conference Thursday on the census.

“I know the profit motive is their business model, but it should not come at the cost of counting who is in our country so that we can provide the services. The beautiful diversity of America is what this administration fears, they want it undercounted. They’re misrepresenting on Facebook and Facebook is saying that this misrepresentation is consistent with their policies.”

Facebook in December announced it would ban all posts including misleading information about the U.S. census.

The policy also bans ads that “portray census participation as useless or meaningless or advise people not to participate in the census,” even if they come from political figures, which are normally exempt from ad fact-checking.