Washington, September 3: Facebook will block all new political ads in the final week of US Presidential elections 2020. In other words, from October-end to November 3, the social media giants would not be accepted advertisements from political parties and politically-affiliated groups or individuals. Facebook on Hate Speech Row: 'We Take Allegations of Bias Seriously, Denounce Hate and Bigotry in All Forms'.

The measure was announced by Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday. In a statement issued on his official account, Zuckerberg also listed other steps that his company will consciously adopt to prevent chaos and unrest ahead of the presidential polls.

"I'm worried that with our nation so divided and election results potentially taking days or even weeks to be finalized, there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the country," Zuckerberg said, as he unveiled a spree of curbs to be imposed by Facebook to prevent circulation of fake news and hate speeches.

See Full Statement Issued by Mark Zuckerberg on Poll-Related Curbs

The US elections are just two months away, and with Covid-19 affecting communities across the country, I'm concerned...

Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday, September 3, 2020

"We're reducing the risk of misinformation and harmful content going viral by limiting forwarding on Messenger. You'll still be able to share information about the election, but we'll limit the number of chats you can forward a message to at one time," Zuckerberg said.

"We've already implemented this in WhatsApp during sensitive periods and have found it to be an effective method of preventing misinformation from spreading in many countries," he added.

On political ads, Zuckerberg said the restrictions would come into effect only in the last week before the polls. Further, he clarified that those ad campaigns which would be already be underway won't be affected.

"We're going to block new political and issue ads during the final week of the campaign. It's important that campaigns can run get out the vote campaigns, and I generally believe 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," he said.

"Advertisers will be able to continue running ads they started running before the final week and adjust the targeting for those ads, but those ads will already be published transparently in our Ads Library so anyone, including fact-checkers and journalists, can scrutinize them," Zuckerberg added.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 03, 2020 05:19 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).