Silencing Voices: A Sacrifice for Progress?

 Keeping fake news out of people's timelines on their social media is no easy task. To cease the confusion over the 2020 election in regard to the influx of political ads that spewed false information on social media sites, Facebook chose to ban political ads for a time. Unfortunately, this made the following Georgia runoff elections even more frustrating; candidates who relied on more accessible ads via social media suffered in terms of outreach. In the article, "Facebook is lifting its political ad ban — in Georgia only" on vox.com states that, "Because Facebook and Google were not allowing any political ads to run on their platforms, which is an extension of previous policies, the candidates hadn’t been able to use the two highly valued digital platforms to reach voters with advertisements or supply them with information about Georgia’s somewhat unusual runoff-election process...The frustration over Facebook’s ad policies reflects both sides’ broader frustrations with its handling of organic content. Democrats seem like they’re only growing more upset about rampant misinformation on the platform in the days after the election...At the same time, conservatives, including the Georgia Republican Senate candidates, continued to argue that Facebook is censoring them". 

The decision to ban political ads during a very important election amidst a pandemic was an unwise decision, and the frustration of which both parties felt was valid. Regardless of political party affiliation and beliefs that are tied to said parties, neither one of said parties deserved to have votes for their candidates skewed by the lack of coverage over the internet, especially during a time where physical contact is prohibited to an extent.