British advertisers condemn Facebook’s refusal to ban or fact-check micro-targeted political ads

The UK’s Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) has expressed its disappointment at Facebook’s decision not to ban political ads that use micro-targeting and spurious claims to sway voter opinion – a practice that the industry body says is “open to abuse and has been demonstrably abused in the recent past”. The retort comes as Facebook doubled down on its refusal to restrict untruthful or deceitful political ads and micro-targeting. The platform said it had decided not to tackle how ads target specific groups of people – some of which may be especially vulnerable, credulous or susceptible to misinformation. Neither will Facebook fact-check these ads.

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