Facebook is continuing to take steps to limit the sort of content it allows on its platform, and says it will stop allowing political advertising once the election season is over.
Madison College marketing professor Steve Noll says these actions might be too little too late for the company as it looks at an uncertain future after the election.
“I really hope that you know Facebook can do the right thing, that history is going to be able to look back on them 30 years from now and show that they are on the right side of history, but I don’t know. I’m really not necessarily seeing that that’s their behavior.”
Facebook has come under fire for allowing false and misleading ads on its platform, and has only recently started kicking dangerous groups like Q-Anon and Holocaust deniers.
Noll says it seems like Facebook wants the clout for banning ads, while still taking political money.
“These political ads cost money to run and Facebook shareholders want that revenue. It’s a very complicated problem of dancing the fine line between ethics and the bottom line for shareholders.”
Noll says it’s a good first step, but that the company needs to tread carefully in the months ahead as talks start to brew over breaking up big tech firms.