Facebook said it will ban advertisements about the Georgia runoff elections starting Wednesday as preliminary results of both U.S. Senate contests showed the Republican incumbent narrowly trailing.
“Following the Georgia runoff election, starting early January 6, 2021, we will no longer allow ads about the Georgia runoff elections on our platform in line with our existing nationwide social issues, electoral or political ads pause,” Facebook announced on the company’s blog.
“Any ads about the Georgia runoff elections will be paused and advertisers will no longer be able to create new ads about social issues, elections or politics,” Facebook’s announcement said.
Facebook said before November’s general election that it would temporarily stop running political ads in the U.S. once polls closed, “to reduce opportunities for confusion or abuse.”
But last month, with around three weeks remaining until the Georgia runoff election, Facebook said it would make an exception for political ads specifically targeting voters in the peach state.
Preliminary results of Tuesday’s election show incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler, Georgia Republican, lost to Democratic challenger Raphael Warnock. The race between Sen. David Perdue, Georgia Republican, and Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff had not been called as of Wednesday morning, but Mr. Ossoff maintained a slim lead.
The outcome of the contests will decide if Republicans or Democrats have majority control of the Senate.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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