Biden campaign urges Twitter to reject misleading Trump ad
October 9, 2019
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign called on Twitter to reject political ads placed by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign that baselessly claim the former vice president pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor investigating a company tied to Biden’s son, Hunter.
In a letter sent Wednesday to General Counsel Vijaya Gadde, obtained by POLITICO, Biden Campaign Manager Greg Schultz said the ad “spreads false, definitively debunked conspiracy theories” and called on Twitter to deny future attempts by the campaign to promote it.
“No company should allow itself to be a tool to mislead the public on any issue, let alone on one as important as the health of our democracy,” he wrote.
Facebook on Monday declined a similar request by Biden’s campaign to take down the ad, which was also placed on that platform. It also ran on Google-owned YouTube. Spokespeople for Twitter and YouTube said the ad complied with their respective policies.
Facebook said its decision is “grounded in Facebook's fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process, and the belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there is.”
Trump today tweeted the ad from his personal account to his 66 million followers.
“It is one thing to allow President Trump the platform to spread falsehoods from his own account; it is quite another to profit from paid ads echoing the same lies,” Schultz wrote.
Twitter representatives did not immediately respond to request for comment on the letter.
Source: https://www.politico.com/
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