Facebook has banned political advertisements from outside Indonesia ahead of the nation’s presidential poll, just weeks after being heavily criticized by the EU for not doing enough to counter election meddling.
The world’s biggest social network said it was temporarily restricting any paid material from advertisers based outside Indonesia that related to politicians, parties or attempts to encourage voter suppression.
“We want to make it harder to interfere with elections on the platform, and easier for people to make their voices legitimately heard in the political process,” Facebook said in a statement, adding the new policy would take effect yesterday.
EU officials blasted the company earlier this year for not doing enough to scrutinize advertising on its site in the run-up to EU elections in May.
In response, the company unveiled new tools and rules that would require a wide range of political ads linked to the elections to be specifically authorized and tagged with a clear “paid for by” disclaimer.
The US firm first began looking into its influence on elections after revelations of Russian influence campaigns during the 2016 US elections, but it has been accused of being too slow to act by some leaders.
Facebook said it would use a combination of automated and human intervention to remove offending ads relating to Indonesia.
Authorities are worried inflammatory material posted online could crack open social and religious fault lines ahead of next month’s presidential election.
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