By Canadian Press

CNN’s Zucker calls Facebook’s political ad policy ludicrous

Oct 24, 2019 | 6:42 PM

NEW YORK — CNN chief Jeff Zucker says Facebook’s policy not to monitor political ads for truth-telling is ludicrous and advised the social media giant to sit out the 2020 election until it can figure out something better.

Zucker, in an appearance Thursday at a conference sponsored by his own network, also derided rival Fox News as “conspiracy TV” and expressed interest in hiring its former news anchor, Shepard Smith, who left earlier this month.

CNN recently rejected two ads that President Donald Trump’s campaign sought to air, saying they repeated allegations against former Vice-President Joe Biden that had been proven false.

Facebook ran the ad, however. The company has said that politicians have the right to unfettered speech on its platform and that it’s up to citizens to investigate claims.

Zucker called the policy “absolutely ludicrous” and that Facebook should be called out on it. Many Democrats have also criticized the social media giant, which was a potent force in the last presidential election and a target of Russians who tried to influence the outcome through fake accounts.

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“Given what happened in 2016, maybe they should just sit it out and not take any political ads until they figure it out,” he said.

There was no immediate response from Facebook.

Zucker noted how his own company has beefed up its fact-checking operation since Trump’s election and is trying to quickly correct false claims made on its air. Earlier this week, when the president derided a prohibition on taking money from foreign governments as phoney, the newspaper showed the constitutional wording on a split screen while he talked.

Zucker had some of his harshest public comments ever about Fox, saying “I don’t think it’s a journalistic operation.” He scolded CNN’s media reporter, Brian Stelter, who was interviewing him at the conference, for saying that Fox had a news side and an opinion side.

The CNN chief said Fox does a disservice to the country by peddling conspiracy theories, but “that’s the path that the Murdochs have chosen to go down.”

Fox, owned by Rupert Murdoch, had no immediate comment on Zucker’s characterizations.

He said he wasn’t surprised that Smith quit as a news anchor at Fox two weeks ago and that he’d be interested in having him at CNN when Smith’s no-compete provision expires.

“He’s somebody I think is incredibly talented,” Zucker said.

David Bauder, The Associated Press