(THE HILL) - Sen.Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign is targeting Facebook's policies for political advertisements with a new ad that purposefully makes the false claim that the company and its CEO Mark Zuckerburg have endorsed President Trump.
Warren and other critics have blasted Facebook in recent days over itsrefusal to take down a Trump campaign ad that accuses Democratic candidate Joe Biden of corruption without evidence. Facebook has defended allowing the ad to stay on its platform.
"Breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for re-election," the mock Warren ad states. "You're probably shocked, and you might be thinking, 'how could this possibly be true?' ... Well, it's not. (Sorry.)"
"But what Zuckerberg *has* done is given Donald Trump free rein to lie on his platform -- and then to pay Facebook gobs of money to push out their lies to American voters," the ad continues.
"If Trump tries to lie in a TV ad, most networks will refuse to air it. But Facebook just cashes Trump's checks," the it states. "Facebook already helped elect Donald Trump once. Now, they're deliberately allowing a candidate to intentionally lie to the American people. It's time to hold Mark Zuckerberg accountable."
Asked about the Warren ad, a Facebook spokesperson told The Hill in a statement on Saturday that the company “believes political speech should be protected."
"If Senator Warren wants to say things she knows to be untrue, we believe Facebook should not be in the position of censoring that speech,” the spokesperson said.
Warren and others have criticized Facebook after the company said it would allow Trump's reelection campaign to continue running the ad against Biden.
The Trump campaign's post perpetuates an unsubstantiated allegation that the former vice president tried to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor because he had been investigating the company where Biden's son served as a board member.
The U.S. and other western countries had publicly pushed for the prosecutor to be dismissed amidcriticismthat the prosecutor was not pursuing corruption cases in the country, and Biden has denied that his efforts were connected to his son's business interests.
More news at THEHILL.com