Facebook says it still won’t ban political ads, even false ones

SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook is reaffirming its freewheeling policy on political ads, saying it won’t ban them, won’t fact-check them and won’t limit how they can be targeted to specific groups of people.

Instead, Facebook will offer users slightly more control over how many political ads they see and make its online library of such ads easier to use. These steps announced Thursday appear unlikely to assuage critics, who say Facebook has too much power and not enough limits when it comes to its effects on elections.

By contrast, Google has decided to limit the targeting of political ads, while Twitter is banning them outright.