Facebook is letting its users switch off political ads.

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Mark Zuckerberg has announced in the run up to the 2020 US Elections that the app will give people the choice to mute ads promoting parties they are not interested in.

Writing in the USA Today newspaper, he said: "For those of you who've already made up your minds and just want the election to be over, we hear you - so we're also introducing the ability to turn off seeing political ads."

The social network's sister app Instagram will also have this function.

It's currently rolling out in the US, but will be made available in other countries later this year.

Ahead of the election in November, Zuckerberg has urged people who are old enough to vote to register.

He said: "Voting is voice. It's the single most powerful expression of democracy, the best way to hold our leaders accountable, and how we address many of the issues our country is grappling with.

"I believe Facebook has a responsibility not just to prevent voter suppression - which disproportionately targets people of colour - but to actively support well-informed voter engagement, registration, and turnout."

He also unveiled Facebook's new hub The Voting Information Center, which will appear at the top of feeds on both apps from next month.

It will give all the information on how to register to vote and more.

The launch of these new features come after Facebook was slammed for allowing politicians to post adverts that contain misinformation.

Last month, Zuckerberg received backlash after he left President Donald Trump's posts on Facebook which Twitter had labelled as misleading.

Zuckerberg claimed Facebook has more "distinguished" policies regarding freedom of expression compared to other tech firms like Twitter

Amid Trump's war on social media, after Twitter fact-checked his recent tweet and put a warning label in the post and a subsequent tweet, after the politician made a claim without providing any tangible evidence, he stated that Facebook doesn't think it's right for them to be fact-checking politicians.

He said: "We think that it wouldn't be right for us to do fact checks for politicians.

"I certainly think our policies have distinguished us from some of the other tech companies in terms of being stronger on free expression and giving people a voice."

His comment came after Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey defended Twitter's decision to fact-check Trump.