Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a September 3 blog post that his company would not publish political ads in the week before the election because there wouldn’t be enough time before election day to fact-check their claims. However, the company confirmed to Fast Company that political campaigns will be able to place new ads on Facebook starting November 4th.
In a “normal” election year this might be less worrisome; in the past, winners have commonly been projected by midnight. But because of mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic, it won’t happen like that in 2020. The result of the presidential race is likely to be very much in doubt when we go to bed on November 3rd.
And 12:01 a.m. on November 4th could mark the outset of an extremely sensitive and crucial period when election officials take a week or longer to process and tabulate the mail-in ballots used by millions of voters this year. Election integrity experts have said that the in-person votes will be counted first in many jurisdictions, and that because higher numbers of his base will likely vote in-person, Trump may appear to hold a lead on election night. That could change over the coming weeks as mail-in ballots are tabulated.
If the Trump campaign uses a mass media channel like Facebook to declare victory in the early hours of November 4th, it could send the GOP base into a frenzy of euphoria—and it may go on believing Trump won even after the official ballot count later reveals Biden to be the president-elect. Trump might then declare the election “rigged” (like he did in 2016, even after winning!) and refuse to leave the White House. The nation would find itself in the teeth of a constitutional crisis.
Facebook’s policy on political ads, in general, is that it’s “in the public interest” to see them, even if they contain disinformation.
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