Election denialism nearly shattered our democracy. Meta’s allowing it anyway. 

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported on a quiet policy change that Meta, Facebook’s parent company, made last year that allows for election denial content in paid political ads. The report cited free speech as a major basis for Meta updating its political ad policy in August 2022 to allow advertisements on Facebook and Instagram that question the legitimacy of past elections, including the 2020 U.S. presidential election. 

This means advertisers can now claim past elections were “rigged” or “stolen,” though they’re still prohibited from questioning the legitimacy of ongoing and future elections. Put simply, this new ad policy enables Meta to profit directly off of a lie that nearly destroyed American democracy.  

As a former employee of Meta and X’s (formerly known as Twitter) policy teams, and as director of tech policy at the Center for American Progress, I am deeply disturbed by the implications here. To allow a tech company to capitalize on the delegitimization of the American electoral process at a time when our democracy is arguably the most fragile it’s ever been is naive at best — and dangerous at worst. 

The “Big Lie” that the 2020 election was stolen not only caused a historic riot in our nation’s capital but has now become central to the 2024 campaigns of numerous Republican candidates, including former President Trump. The effects of this policy are already being felt, including when Trump ran a Facebook ad in August where he said on video: “We won in 2016. We had a rigged election in 2020 but got more votes than any sitting president. We’re going to win like never before.”  

Let me be clear. I know from personal experience that organic content has been and will always be incredibly challenging to moderate on the scale at which these platforms operate. I can understand the argument for allowing prior election delegitimization in organic content. However, there have always been clear differences in how platforms handle organic content and advertisements. 

Advertisements, promoted content, sponsored posts and other monetized content are already subject to their own unique policies, operational guidelines and review processes that are held to a higher standard than organic content. Ads — especially political ads — have distinct policy teams, operational staff and scaled reviewers in order to enforce this “higher bar” in a proactive manner, approving each piece of content before it can go live.

Ads also generate the lion’s share of Meta’s profits, meaning they have additional rules and an even more extensive review process. It is reasonable, feasible and necessary for Meta to enforce this higher standard across its platforms. 

I cannot conceive of a single way that these ads might strengthen political discourse, safeguard social media users or demonstrate Meta’s commitment to protecting the sanctity of elections. Disallowing these kinds of ads for current and future elections isn’t enough. Accepting payment and promoting content that delegitimizes past elections — and further amplifying its reach through powerful ad targeting tools — is how Meta may once again play a pivotal role in the destabilization of American democracy. This underscores why Meta and its peer companies must not allow this content in advertisements and instead should take proactive steps to discourage it.  

With 2 billion people voting in 2024 worldwide, Meta’s new policy is another example of backsliding election protection efforts and seemingly demonstrates the industry’s lack of commitment to protecting users and upholding democratic values in the digital world. In the Center for American Progress’s 2024 elections recommendations, we specifically call out the need for social media platforms like Meta to prohibit monetization and recommendation of past or future election delegitimization content and disallow paid advertisements or promoted posts that promote election denial.  

With just under a year until the 2024 presidential election, it’s still not too late for Meta and other media platforms to reverse their harmful policy change, uphold their responsibility to protect digital democracy and reset the industry precedent. I implore Meta, X, YouTube and others to stop backsliding, rethink these approaches and act now before we have no democracy left to protect. 

Megan Shahi is the director of tech policy at the Center for American Progress. Previously, she spent time working on the policy teams of both Meta and X, formerly Twitter.