Facebook to lift ban on political ads in the U.S.

Facebook will end its temporary ban on political ads in the U.S. starting on Thursday.

The company announced in a blog post on Wednesday it would soon reverse its months-long freeze on political, electoral and social ads, which it first introduced to crack down on misinformation around last November's presidential election.

Meanwhile Google, which reinstated their own pause on ads following the deadly January 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol, lifted theirs last week.

But they've faced criticism from both Democratic and Republican strategists, who argue that such bans were overly broad and failed to combat the issue of organic misinformation on the platforms.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Democratic Congressional and Senatorial campaign committees issued a statement which criticized Facebook for not communicating a clear date to end the ban, saying the freeze had made it harder to reach voters.

In its blog post Wednesday, Facebook said that its systems do not distinguish between political and electoral ads and "social issue" ads, and added that it would look at further changes to its advertising policies in the coming months.