Facebook has been accused of running biased campaigns and siding with a political party during elections in the past. Not just that, a Facebook chat group incited violence in a public rally and the social site was criticized for not removing the group even though the discussions were public.

In light of those and recent events, Facebook has come up with a strategy that moves all the accountability from them to the users: you will be able to “turn off” political ads if you do not want to associate with them. So in the future, if Zuckerberg is accused of picking sides, he can present this feature as a defense.

Source: Facebook

Facebook is also launching a new “Voting Information Centre” to guide people about how to vote and will tell you about your polling station and other options like email. The users will also be allowed to turn off notifications that will serve as a reminder to vote.

In an article published in USA Today, Mark Zuckerberg said that even though “many people want us to moderate and remove more of [politicians’] content,” he believes “accountability only works if we can see what those seeking our votes are saying.”

“Voting is voice,” writes Zuckerberg. “It’s the single most powerful expression of democracy, the best way to hold our leaders accountable and how we address many of the issues our country is grappling with.”

This alteration in policy does little to bring the change people had hoped for. The company allows politicians to blatantly lie in paid adverts to users and we are still not over the fact that Zuckerberg ignored all the Trump posts where he threatened the protesters of the Black Lives Movement. Instead of apologizing for his company’s incompetency he actively defended the decision under the label of “freedom of speech”.

Even Joe Biden couldn't resist criticizing Facebook and in an open letter to the company, he wrote that allowing the politicians to post lies about their campaigns “[poses] a threat to free and fair elections.”