Facebook won't take down ad claiming McConnell supports impeachment

Facebook will not unilaterally remove a misleading ad created by a California gubernatorial candidate who is challenging the company's fact-checking policies by claiming that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., supports the impeachment of President Trump, Fox News has confirmed.

Titled "#ThanksMitch," the ad by Adriel Hampton shows a series of spliced clips falsely indicating that McConnell backs the process that would prompt a Senate trial to determine whether Trump should be removed from office. McConnell has vowed to quash a removal effort and has also fiercely condemned Democratic attempts to impeach Trump.

In a statement to Fox News, Facebook didn't say it would remove the ad. Instead, it said that unlike other candidates, Hampton's ads would be subject to third-party fact-checking because he deliberately registered as a candidate in order to skirt its fact-checking policies.

“This person has made clear he registered as a candidate to get around our policies, so his content, including ads, will continue to be eligible for third-party fact-checking," a Facebook spokesperson said. When asked why the social media giant couldn't just remove the ad itself, the company didn't immediately respond.

"So bizarre that Facebook tells reporters that third-party fact checkers [sic] can flag my false ads," Hampton responded on Twitter. "But Facebook's official policy for those fact checkers [sic] tells them 'hands off' [sic] of ads by political parties and politicians. Facebook has lost the plot."

Well FB wouldn't take this down either.

This FB Allows! 'How to pick up Jewish chicks': Vile anti-Semitic picture shows human remains on a shovel - but Facebook refused to remove it Source: theage

How_To Facebook has been accused of "enabling vicious Jewish hatred" after telling users an image depicting human remains on a shovel below the tag line "How to pick up Jewish chicks" did not breach its standards.

Just days after back flipping on its decision to censor an iconic Vietnam War photo of a naked girl escaping a napalm bombing, the social media giant is again under fire over its handling of posts reported as offensive.

In reply to complaints about the shovel image - which was widely shared, "liked" 21,000 times, and received more than 37,000 comments - Facebook said: "We reviewed the post you reported for displaying hate speech and found it doesn't violate our community standards."

Under its community standards policy, Facebook says it "removes hate speech" that attacks people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin and religious affiliation.

"We allow humor, satire or social commentary related to these topics, and we believe that when people use their authentic identity, they are more responsible when they share this kind of commentary," the policy says.

The image was posted to a page attributed to a Queensland man late last month and shared 2280 times. It has now been removed but tens of thousands of comments, many of which are anti-Semitic, were still visible in the thread as late as Thursday.

A Facebook spokesman said the image was removed for breaching community standards and that the company was still investigating.

But 24 hours after being asked, the spokesman could still not say when the photo was taken down. Facebook could also not explain why only the photo was initially removed and not the entire thread - which is standard when a post is pulled.

Zuckerberg has said it's not up to Facebook to fact check every political ad and liberals are furious.

As a result they are provoking Facebook with deliberately false content to force Facebook to change their policy and start policing ads.

This is a sticky one.

Do we want Facebook to fact check ads? Who will the fact checkers be? Do we want to hand liberals the power to force Facebook to censor ads by forcing them to fact check every ad?

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