Facebook banned the conservative news outlet The Epoch Times from buying ads on its platform after it spent more money than any group other than the Trump campaign on pro-Trump ads on the network, NBC News reports.
The Epoch Times, a popular right-wing news outlet with links to a doomsday cult, was banned from buying ads after NBC reported that the outlet had used generic pages to hide about $2 million worth of ads promoting Trump and conspiracy theories about his opponents.
"Over the past year we removed accounts associated with the Epoch Times for violating our ad policies, including trying to get around our review systems," a Facebook spokesperson told NBC. "We acted on additional accounts today and they are no longer able to advertise with us."
Facebook said that ads must include disclaimers that show the name of the ad’s sponsors but NBC reports that the Epoch Times used generic pages like “Honest Paper” and “Pure American Journalism” to hide the millions of dollars it spent on Trump ads.
Epoch Times was founded by a doomsday cult:
“The Epoch Times had evolved from a nonprofit newspaper that carried a Chinese-American religious movement's anti-communism message into a conservative online news behemoth that embraced President Donald Trump and conspiracy content,” NBC News reported. “The religious group that quietly operates the paper believes in a coming judgment day that will send communists to hell and says Trump is helping accelerate that timeline.”
Epoch Times saw big profits thanks to Trump:
The Epoch Times’ revenues more than doubled since 2016 and its reach has surpassed every other news organization online, NBC News reported. The Epoch Times has gotten billions of views on Facebook and other platforms.
“The growth and legitimacy of The Epoch Times are due in large part to Facebook, where it placed $2 million in pro-Trump ads in the last year, more than any other organization outside Trump's re-election campaign and more than what most of the Democratic presidential candidates spent on their own campaigns in the same time,” NBC News reported.
