Facebook extends ban on US political ads and refuses to call Biden winner in email to advertisers

Move comes as Donald Trump spreads election fraud disinformation

Facebook has extended its ban on US political adverts for another month as it refused to call Joe Biden the winner in an email to advertisers.

The social media giant said it was continuing its ban to prevent misinformation as Donald Trump refused to concede the election to Mr Biden, despite his victory.

“While multiple sources have projected a presidential winner, we still believe it’s important to help prevent confusion or abuse on our platform,” the company wrote in an email to its advertisers, according to Reuters.

They added that despite the pause their “may be an opportunity to resume these ads sooner.”

Mr Trump’s claims that the election was impacted by widespread ballot fraud have seen widespread traffic on social media in the days following Mr Biden’s victory.

The outgoing president has filed a string of lawsuits in battleground states seeking to strike off some ballots.

Google also appears to be continuing its post-election ban on political adverts, but the company has declined to say how long that would be in effect.

The bans from both firms means they are not taking adverts ahead of the two Senate race runoffs in Georgia in January.

The results of those races could decide control of the US Senate.

Facebook has come under a barrage of criticism from Democratic strategists n the days following Mr Biden’s win for not shutting down election disinformation.

Bill Russo, Mr Biden’s head of press, accused the social media giant of spreading viral lies in the wake of Mr Biden’s victory.

"We pleaded with Facebook for over a year to be serious about these problems. They have not. Our democracy is on the line. We need answers," tweeted Mr Russo.

He also accused the company of “shredding the fabric of our democracy.”

Barack Obama’s former aide Ben Rhodes also attacked Facebook’s actions after the election.

“At this moment, Facebook is spreading disinformation that is destroying confidence in American democracy so its multi-billionaire CEO can make some more money off of clicks and ads,” he tweeted.

“Increasingly hard to understand how people of good conscience work there.”

Additional reporting by Reuters