Meta Platforms will let political ads on Facebook and Instagram question the legitimacy of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, one of several changes the social-media company and other platforms have made to loosen constraints on campaign advertising for 2024.
Meta made the change last year, but it hasn’t gained wide attention. The company decided to allow political advertisers to say past elections were “rigged” or “stolen” but prevented them from questioning the legitimacy of ongoing and coming elections.
Executives at Meta made the decision based on free-speech considerations after weighing past U.S. elections in which the results might have been contested by a portion of the electorate, according to people familiar with the issue.
The updated policy is part of a number of changes Meta has made that might fundamentally alter its influence and reach compared with in past elections, including a move to adjust its algorithm in a way that de-emphasizes organic political content on Facebook, the people said.
Some candidates already appear to have questioned elections in ads. Former President Donald Trump ran a campaign ad on Facebook in August that was within the bounds of the updated policy. “We won in 2016. We had a rigged election in 2020 but got more votes than any sitting president,” Trump said in the ad. “We’re going to win like never before.”
Meta and other platforms have made a number of changes to election policies ahead of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Google’s YouTube in June announced that it would stop removing claims that widespread fraud occurred in the 2020 and past U.S. elections. X, formerly known as Twitter, announced in August that it would once again allow political ads after banning them in 2019.
Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public-policy director who wasn’t involved in the decision, said it would be challenging for social-media companies to preach free speech yet ban politicians from questioning the results of the 2020 election, which has become such a significant part of the public discourse.
“In the U.S., they have a right to say that,” said Harbath, who is now elections program lead at the Integrity Institute, an advocacy group that aims to study and address the social harms of internet platforms. Efforts to undermine coming elections can have more consequences, including reducing voter turnout or even leading to political violence. Disputing past elections won’t change results, she said.