Facebook To Biden: We Refuse To Fact-Check Trump

NBC News reports:

Former Vice President Joe Biden issued an open letter to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday, calling for the social media giant to stamp out misinformation, including proposing a two-week pre-election period where all political ads are fact-checked.

Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, also called for “clear rules — applied to everyone, including Donald Trump — that prohibit threatening behavior and lies about how to participate in the election.”

Via press release from Facebook:



We live in a democracy, where the elected officials decide the rules around campaigns. Two weeks ago the President of the United States issued an executive order directing Federal agencies to prevent social media sites from engaging in activities like fact-checking political statements.

This week, the Democratic candidate for President started a petition calling on us to do the exact opposite.

Just as they have done with broadcast networks — where the US government prohibits rejecting politicians’ campaign ads — the people’s elected representatives should set the rules, and we will follow them. There is an election coming in November and we will protect political speech, even when we strongly disagree with it.