Facebook is not committed to the principle of free speech in advertising, and prohibits advertisements for a great many things that are legal to advertise.

Whether or not FB has this commitment right now, they should have this commitment. A ban on political ads would go against a hypothetical commitment to the principle of free speech.

Every large advertising platform I can think of has rules about what they will accept that are narrower than what the laws that apply to them require. For example, it's generally legal in the US to advertise firearms, but most large advertising platforms refuse ads for them.

Again, I’m describing a goal. You are describing the status quo. The existence of a bad status quo doesn’t negate what the goal should be.

In my view, the goal of FB should be to allow for free speech, especially in the context of politics.

If Facebook was a simple publishing platform the way it was in its early days, I'd be inclined to agree. The same goes for an ad network with only broad targeting capabilities, e.g. that the viewer is likely an adult in a particular candidate's district.

Restricting political advertising using Facebook's hyper-targeted advertising platform strikes me as a responsible decision. I'm not sure there is a bright line between persuasion and manipulation, but if Facebook is trying to prevent the latter, that's more ethical behavior than I expected from them.

Note that limiting hyper targeting is very different from banning all political ads, as GP was suggesting, and as Twitter has done (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/technology/twitter-politi...). Even then, I don't think it's a good approach. I'd observe that you can do hyper targeting via snail mail, door-to-door campaigning, phone calls, and SMS. Also, this is still a type of policy that assumes people need to be shielded from speech, and that they aren't able to make good decisions without guidance from FB moderators.

Personally, I think disclosure is the best policy. For example, make it easy to find all the ads a particular politician or group has posted. FB has already implemented a many things in that area.

What about freedom to not do work on behalf of someone else? Is my work not my speech?

I don't buy that argument, which just rewards whoever has the most money to throw at the advertising market (Bloomberg's signal failure in this regard doesn't invalidate the general problem). I like the clearly labeled and non-sensationalistic statements in voter information booklets, myself.

I am of course speaking in general terms about future elections rather than making drastic adjustments in the middle of this one.

If you ban advertisements on Facebook, you end up favoring people with pre-existing set of followers. Typically this will be an incumbent, or perhaps celebrity candidates.

Moreover, FB banning political ads doesn't end the advantage of having more money. It just channels that money somewhere else (TV ads, hiring door-to-door campaigners).

How can you say that banning FB ads similtaneous muzzles free speech (in your other comment) and also has no quantitative impact on speech?

It certainly muzzles speech. It is likely to lessen the advantage of money in politics, but does not eliminate it entirely.

I don’t believe eliminating the influence of money from politics is a desirable or achievable goal. If you do think it is desirable and achievable, then a ban on FB ads makes sense, but you should also presumably advocate for a ban on TV ads, newspaper ads, paid campaign events, paid campaign staff, and so on.