Facebook won’t check the credibility of politicians' posts, the social network announced a year before the US presidential election.

The social network relies on third parties, including major news outlets, to verify the information. 

“We rely on third-party fact-checkers to help reduce the spread of false news and other types of viral misinformation, like memes or manipulated photos and videos. We don’t believe, however, that it’s an appropriate role for us to referee political debates and prevent a politician’s speech from reaching its audience and being subject to public debate and scrutiny. That’s why Facebook exempts politicians from our third-party fact-checking program. We have had this policy on the books for over a year now, posted publicly on our site under our eligibility guidelines. This means that we will not send organic content or ads from politicians to our third-party fact-checking partners for review. However, when a politician shares previously debunked content including links, videos and photos, we plan to demote that content, display related information from fact-checkers, and reject its inclusion in advertisements.”,  Nick Clegg, vice president VP of Global Affairs and Communications said in a post.

Concerns are mounting ahead of the US presidential election in November 2020 following the unveiling of a large-scale disinformation campaign on Facebook and other social networks hosted by Russia during the 2016 vote. This was also the reason why Facebook collaborated with various media outlets verify the validity of various articles and publications.