Facebook bans conservative election ad attacking transgender girls in sport

A conservative political action committee has slammed an “absurd” decision by Facebook to ban an election ad that attacked transgender girls participating in school sports.

The ad from the American Principles Project takes aim at incumbent Michigan Democratic Senator Gary Peters and presidential nominee Joe Biden over their support for the Equality Act, a wide-ranging LGBTQ rights bill.

Republicans have focused on the fact that the bill would allow transgender students to compete on school sports teams based on their gender identity.

The controversial issue is currently the subject of several court battles in the US.

“All female athletes want is a fair shot at competition, at a scholarship, at a title, at victory,” the ad’s voiceover says.

“But what if that shot was taken away by a competitor who claims to be a girl but was born a boy? Senator Gary Peters and Joe Biden support legislation that would destroy girls’ sports. They call it equality. Really? That’s not fair. Not fair at all. Vote against Gary Peters and Joe Biden. They are too extreme for Michigan.”

According to the APP, which is spending $US4 million ($5.5 million) on the campaign, Facebook initially applied a “missing context” warning label before blocking the ad outright.

“Full-on censorship,” the group tweeted on Tuesday.

The notice from Facebook warned viewers that “independent fact-checkers at PolitiFact” had found information in the post “is missing context and could mislead people”.

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