Facebook to halt political ads a week before US election 'to avoid civil unrest'

Facebook says it will stop accepting political advertisements in the week before the US election, as Mark Zuckerberg warns of "an increased risk of civil unrest across the country".

Explaining the move, Mr Zuckerberg said: "We're going to block new political and issue ads during the final week of the campaign."

He said he "generally" believed that "the best antidote to bad speech is more speech, but in the final days of an election there may not be enough time to contest new claims".

"So in the week before the election, we won't accept new political or issue ads," he continued, although advertisements that had already been running will be allowed to continue.

"This election is not going to be business an usual. We all have a responsibility to protect our democracy," added Mr Zuckerberg.

He said that Facebook was taking steps to encourage voter turn-out as well as tackle misinformation and prepare for candidates prematurely declaring the results.

In particular he warned that the coronavirus pandemic, which was likely to result in an increased number of people voting by mail, could mean delays to vote counting.

"Many experts are predicting that we may not have a final result on election night," he wrote.

"It's important that we prepare for this possibility in advance and understand that there could be a period of intense claims and counter-claims as the final results are counted.

"This could be a very heated period, so we're preparing the following policies to help in the days and weeks after voting ends," he said.