FACEBOOK BANNED ADVERTISEMENTS FROM THE EPOCH TIMES AFTER IT BOUGHT $1.5 MILLION OF TRUMP ADS IN 6 MONTHS

August 26, 2019 in News by RBN

Published: August 25, 2019

SOURCE: BUSINESSINSIDER.COM

 
  • Facebook has banned The Epoch Times, a pro-Donald Trump, pro-Conservative publication, from advertising on its platform.
  • The decision comes after NBC reported that the publication was sneaking pro-Trump ads past Facebook’s review system.
  • The Epoch Times spent more than $1.5 million on the ads over the past six months, making it the second-largest source of pro-Trump Facebook ads after Trump himself.
  • The Epoch Times is a non-profit publication that’s tied to a Chinese religious group named Falun Gong. According to NBC, Falun Gong sees Trump as a force to undermine China.

 

Facebook has banned The Epoch Times, a pro-Donald Trump, pro-Conservative publication, from advertising on its platform after it tried to sneak ads past its review system, NBC News reported on Thursday.

The news comes after reports surfaced that The Epoch Times had spent more than $1.5 million on pro-Trump Facebook advertising in the past six months, making it the second-largest source of pro-Trump Facebook ads on the platform after the Trump campaign.

Its ads were described by NBC as featuring “unidentified spokespeople” who “thumb through a newspaper to praise Trump, peddle conspiracy theories about the ‘Deep State,’ and criticize ‘fake news’ media.”

Up until mid-July, these ads were run through accounts that clearly showed their affiliation to The Epoch Times via a Facebook page called “ Coverage of the Trump presidency by The Epoch Times.”

But after journalists started looking at whether these ads violated Facebook’s policies, NBC discovered that the Epoch Times shifted funding to other accounts with names such as Honest Paper, Patriots of America, Pure American Journalism, and Best News in attempt to hide its connection to the pro-Trump ads it was publishing.

Now, Facebook is taking action.

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