Biden Campaign Says It Will Continue to Advertise on Facebook: ‘We Cannot Afford to Cede These Platforms’

Amid mounting criticism of social media companies and how they police disinformation and hate speech, former Vice President Joe Biden’s (D) campaign says it will not pull its advertising from Facebook.

In a statement to CNN, Biden spokesman Bill Russo said, “We share the concerns of companies who are speaking up about Facebook’s inaction around making meaningful changes that protects our democracy.”

He added, “But with less than five months until Election Day, we cannot afford to cede these platforms to Donald Trump and his lies. Our campaign will be present every day to get our message in front of every voter to ensure Trump doesn’t get another four years.”

The Biden campaign’s decision comes as several companies have announced their intention to top advertising on Facebook and other social media platforms, as IJR reported.

Last week, the Coca-Cola Company announced that it would stop advertising on social media for 30 days. In a statement, the company said, ”The Coca-Cola Company will pause paid advertising on all social media platforms globally for at least 30 days.”

“We will take this time to reassess our advertising policies to determine whether revisions are needed. We also expect greater accountability and transparency from our social media partners,” it added.

Some of the companies that have committed to putting a pause on paying for ads on social media include Verizon, Starbuck, Unilever, Clorox, The North Face, and REI. 

In recent days, several social media companies have taken steps to crack down on accounts that they say violate their community guidelines, as IJR reported.

On Monday, Reddit announced that it would ban the subreddit channel “The Donald,” where supporters of President Donald Trump shared content that the platform said violated its policies.

Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman explained the decision, “It was becoming clear that the company’s values and the way discourse was playing out on the platform was one of the main things we wanted to fix in our content policy update.”

Additionally, video streaming service Twitch said it had temporarily banned Trump’s account for violating its “hateful conduct” policy.

Twitch said it flagged two of Trump’s videos for violating its policy.

And Twitter has applied a series of advisories to Trump’s tweets, as IJR reported.

But Facebook has received criticism over the company’s reluctance to crack down on hate speech and disinformation.

Jonathan Greenblatt the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League blasted Facebook for its lax content moderation, “We have long seen how Facebook has allowed some of the worst elements of society into our homes and our lives. When this hate spreads online it causes tremendous harm and also becomes permissible offline.”

Additionally, Biden’s campaign asked Facebook to apply an even standard regarding disinformation and asked the social media company to take down Trump’s posts about mail-in voting.

In June, Facebook’s Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications Nick Clegg admitted that “we would like to do even better” in policing disinformation and hate speech.