How To Turn Off Politics Ads On Facebook And Instagram

By Annie Baker ● Jun 22, 2020
  • Facebook has announced that users will be able to turn off political ads on Facebook and Instagram. Here is a tutorial on how to do it.

Facebook has announced that users will be able to turn off political ads on Facebook and Instagram. Plus Facebook pointed out that it is going to improve election information visibility and voting details. 

During the 2016 presidential election, Facebook was compromised in the spreading of misinformation. 

“In 2016, we were slow to identify foreign interference on our platform. Since then, we’ve built some of the most advanced systems in the world to protect against election interference — investing billions of dollars in technology and hiring tens of thousands of people to work on safety and security. We’ve learned from this experience and have protected against interference in more than 200 elections around the world,” wrote Zuckerberg in a recent op-ed on USA Today. “The threat of election interference is real and ongoing, but our systems are more prepared than ever. We took down more than 50 networks of malicious accounts in 2019, and we’ve removed 18 this year.”

Zuckerberg noted that he has a goal for Facebook to help 4 million more people register to vote. And Facebook and Instagram will have a Voting Information Center for users to find out about voter registration and early voting tools.

How To Turn Off Political Ads On Facebook And Instagram

“People will be able to turn off all social issue, electoral or political ads from candidates, Super PACs or other organizations that have the ‘Paid for by’ political disclaimer on them. You can do this on Facebook or Instagram directly from any political or social issue ad or through each platform’s ad settings. However, we know our system isn’t perfect. So if you’ve selected this preference and still see an ad that you think is political, please click the upper right corner of the ad and report it to us,” wrote Naomi Gleit, VP of Product Management and Social Impact in a company blog post.

You can turn off political ads in several ways. Here are two methods on Facebook to turn off the political ads:

First Method: Go to the menu option > Settings > Ad Preferences > Ad Topics > Social Issues, Elections or Politics > See fewer ads about this topic

Second Method: Upon seeing an ad that says “paid by” on Facebook, click on “see fewer ads about this topic.”

On Instagram: 

First Method: Click on the “Paid for by” button and select “See few ads like this” on the popup that appears.

Second Method: Tap on the three-line menu button > Settings > Ads > Ad Topics Preferences > “Social Issues, Elections or Politics”