Washington (AFP)

Facebook confirmed on Thursday that political advertisements, even false ones, will only be exceptionally censored, despite intense criticism from all sides and the risk of large-scale disinformation in the run-up to the US presidential campaign.

A blog post posted on Thursday by Facebook product manager Rob Leathern shows that the network remains straight in its boots and does exactly what its founder Mark Zuckerberg promised in the fall during a long speech on the freedom of expression in Washington.

"We base our principles on the fact that people can hear those who have the vocation to direct them, the good grain as the tares, and that what they have to say is sifted and debated in public", writes M Leathern.

"In a democracy I think it's up to people to decide what is credible, not to tech companies," said the young founding billionaire on October 17, already stressing that he would allow for a few exceptions, as in the case of incitement to violence.

Messrs. Both Leathern and Zuckerberg insist that it is not up to a private company to make the decision to censor this or that politician. They prefer to call "a regulation which applies to the whole sector".

Facebook derives most of its revenue and huge profits from its ability to target a given audience extremely precisely. An advantage that has not been overlooked by the presidential candidates, who spend large sums on the network, starting with President Donald Trump.

Twitter has decided to ban political advertising from the network. Google has adopted an intermediate position by announcing in late November a tightening of its rules on political advertising, while refusing to "rule" on their veracity except in exceptional cases.

Facebook is particularly on the hot seat in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election after the Cambridge Analytica scandal: this British company had used their personal data without the knowledge of tens of millions of Facebook users to influence the outcome of the vote in 2016, in favor of Donald Trump.

To this were added revelations about online disinformation campaigns carried out by a Russian pharmacy close to the Kremlin, to help the candidacy of the republican billionaire.

Facebook had been particularly slow to admit the scope of the intervention.

While not changing anything, the social network claims "not to be deaf" to critics and promises to mobilize to "protect the elections".

© 2020 AFP