--- title: Elizabeth Warren Hits Facebook Ad Policy by running Fake Ad description: To draw attention to Facebook's ad policy, Warren ran a series of Facebook ads falsely claiming that Mark Zuckerberg endorsed President Trump. canonical: https://time.com/5699122/elizabeth-warren-facebook-fake-ad-mark-zuckerberg/ author: Madeleine Carlisle article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-10-12T18:09:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T07:33:11.917Z article:section: Politics og:title: Elizabeth Warren Targets Facebook's Ad Policy With a Fake Ad Claiming Mark Zuckerberg Endorsed Trump's Re-Election og:description: Facebook's policy states ads by politicians are exempt from third-party fact-checking og:url: https://time.com/5699122/elizabeth-warren-facebook-fake-ad-mark-zuckerberg/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8bc6b9adce840abc/698a042edb298718042644ca/elizabeth-warren-facebook-ad-mark-zuckerberg.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Elizabeth Warren Facebook ad Mark Zuckerberg og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Elizabeth Warren Targets Facebook's Ad Policy With a Fake Ad Claiming Mark Zuckerberg Endorsed Trump's Re-Election twitter:description: Facebook's policy states ads by politicians are exempt from third-party fact-checking twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8bc6b9adce840abc/698a042edb298718042644ca/elizabeth-warren-facebook-ad-mark-zuckerberg.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Elizabeth Warren Targets Facebook’s Ad Policy With a Fake Ad Claiming Mark Zuckerberg Endorsed Trump’s Re-Election > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Madeleine Carlisle](https://time.com/author/madeleine-carlisle/)  ## Madeleine Carlisle Oct 12, 2019 6:09 PM UTC  Sen. Elizabeth Warren one of several Democrats running for the party's nomination in the 2020 presidential race, speaks during a campaign event, March 8, 2019 in the Queens borough of New York City. Sen. Elizabeth Warren one of several Democrats running for the party's nomination in the 2020 presidential race, speaks during a campaign event, March 8, 2019 in the Queens borough of New York City. Drew Angerer—Getty Images  by [Madeleine Carlisle](https://time.com/author/madeleine-carlisle/)  ## Madeleine Carlisle Oct 12, 2019 6:09 PM UTC The tension between 2020 candidate Sen. [Elizabeth Warren](https://time.com/longform/elizabeth-warren-2020/) and social media giant Facebook continued this week as Warren’s campaign ran a series of Facebook ads falsely claiming that [Mark Zuckerberg](https://time.com/facebook-world-plan/) endorsed President Donald Trump for reelection. Warren’s ad targets [Facebook’s policy](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/10/facebook-policy-political-speech-lets-politicians-lie-ads/) that states ads by politicians are exempt from third-party fact-checking, essentially giving candidates a possible platform to spread misinformation. It’s a policy that the Democrat presidential candidate has repeatedly criticized. The ad reads: “Breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for re-election. You’re probably shocked, and you might be thinking, ‘how could this possible be true?’ Well it’s not. (Sorry.) But what Zuckerberg \*has\* done is given Donald Trump free rein to lie on his platform — and then to pay Facebook gobs of money to push out their lies to American voters.” > [](https://twitter.com/sivavaid/status/1182806730767503362) Warren, who [campaigns](https://www.wsj.com/articles/elizabeth-warren-vows-to-remake-capitalism-businesses-are-bracing-11570643931) on breaking up big tech companies like Facebook and Google because they have an outsized influence, tweeted on Saturday that the fake ad was designed to see “just how far” Facebook’s policy would let her campaign go. “We intentionally made a Facebook ad with false claims and submitted it to Facebook’s ad platform to see if it’d be approved. It got approved quickly and the ad is now running on Facebook,” she tweeted. > [](https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1183019900178223104) There’s [no love lost](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/warren-vs-facebook-leaked-zuckerberg-audio-restarts-debate-about-breaking-n1060816) between the Massachusetts senator and the social media giant. Warren has repeated criticized Facebook while campaigning, and [leaked audio](https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/1/20892354/mark-zuckerberg-full-transcript-leaked-facebook-meetings?fbclid=IwAR1HI%5Ff6FikT1nvpEBQECcJ5MZYvpE8chkDPhfIMwZbgNlHqXNk6GAX0IXU) of a Facebook meeting in July revealed Zuckerberg promising to fight Warren’s proposal to breakup the company were she elected President. He also said that her election would “suck” for the company. Warren hit back in a tweet: > [](https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1179023352742236160) Recently, the Trump campaign has been running a [social media ad](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/oct/11/donald-trump/trump-ad-misleads-about-biden-ukraine-and-prosecut/) that falsely claims Joe Biden promised money to Ukraine to fire a prosecutor investigating his son. There’s [no evidence](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/politics/biden-ukraine-trump.html?module=inline) this ever occurred. Reuters [reports](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-facebook/biden-campaign-asks-facebook-twitter-and-google-to-take-down-trump-ad-idUSKBN1WQ2AS) that the Biden campaign sent letters to Facebook, Twitter and Google asking them to take down the ad. On Tuesday, Facebook responded in a letter to the Biden campaign that said [the ad did not violate the company’s policy](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-facebook/biden-campaign-asks-facebook-twitter-and-google-to-take-down-trump-ad-idUSKBN1WQ2AS). “Our approach is grounded in Facebook’s fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process, and the belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there is,” the New York _Times_ [reports](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/technology/facebook-trump-biden-ad.html) Facebook’s head of global elections policy, Katie Harbath, wrote in the letter to the Biden campaign. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5699122/elizabeth-warren-facebook-fake-ad-mark-zuckerberg/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5699122/elizabeth-warren-facebook-fake-ad-mark-zuckerberg/"},"headline":"Elizabeth Warren Targets Facebook’s Ad Policy With a Fake Ad Claiming Mark Zuckerberg Endorsed Trump’s Re-Election","datePublished":"2019-10-12T18:09:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T07:33:11.917Z","description":"Facebook's policy states ads by politicians are exempt from third-party fact-checking","url":"https://time.com/5699122/elizabeth-warren-facebook-fake-ad-mark-zuckerberg/","keywords":["facebook","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8bc6b9adce840abc/698a042edb298718042644ca/elizabeth-warren-facebook-ad-mark-zuckerberg.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Madeleine Carlisle","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/madeleine-carlisle/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8bc6b9adce840abc/698a042edb298718042644ca/elizabeth-warren-facebook-ad-mark-zuckerberg.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Elizabeth Warren Facebook ad Mark Zuckerberg","caption":"Elizabeth Warren Facebook ad Mark Zuckerberg","creditText":"Drew Angerer—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5699122/elizabeth-warren-facebook-fake-ad-mark-zuckerberg/","name":"Elizabeth Warren Targets Facebook’s Ad Policy With a Fake Ad Claiming Mark Zuckerberg Endorsed Trump’s Re-Election"}}]}] ```