The option will be available in the United States on both Facebook and Instagram.
Writing in USA Today, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said: “For those of you who’ve already made up your minds and just want the election to be over, we hear you — so we’re also introducing the ability to turn off seeing political ads. We’ll still remind you to vote.”
The move follows a similar decision taken by rival Twitter in October, which saw the site ban the promotion of political content, adding that “political message reach should be earned, not bought”.
BBC News and Newsweek report that the tool will be rolled out in other countries later on in the year.
Facebook’s announcement forms part of the platform’s voter information campaign, with the aim of helping 4 million people in the US to register to vote.
The company will create a new Voting Information Centre for users, sharing details around how and when to vote, as well as voter registration, postal voting and early voting.
“We’ll also include posts from state election officials and verified local election authorities. We’ll show this center at the top of the Facebook News Feed and on Instagram to make sure everyone gets a chance to see it,” Zuckerberg adds.
He continued by saying that he expects over 160 million people in the United States will see information from Facebook about voting, from July to November.
The launch of the centre comes after a Facebook survey saw more than half of adults in the US say they believe “people will need more information on how to vote in November than in previous elections”.
Elsewhere, the Facebook boss mentioned the platform’s “responsibility to protect the integrity of the vote itself”, admitting that the site was “slow to identify foreign interference on our platform”.
In 2017, it was revealed that during and after the election, Russia-backed posts on Facebook reached up to 126 million Americans using the platform.
“Since [2016], we’ve built some of the most advanced systems in the world to protect against election interference — investing billions of dollars in technology and hiring tens of thousands of people to work on safety and security.
“We’ve learned from this experience and have protected against interference in more than 200 elections around the world.
“The threat of election interference is real and ongoing, but our systems are more prepared than ever,” Zuckerberg said.
He added that Facebook had taken down over 50 malicious account networks last year, with 18 removed so far this year.
“This work is never finished, but we’ve learned a lot and have adapted our systems to protect against interference,” he said.
The full article can be read on the USA Today website.
Want More?
Read Facebook’s overview of its advertising system, or take a look at Instagram’s Pride Month features.
For updates follow @TenEightyUK on Twitter or like TenEighty UK on Facebook.
