During Ireland's highly contentious abortion ban referendum last year, Facebook blocked American pro-life groups from running advertisements in the country, despite the Irish government declining to ask the company to do so, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
"During [Ireland's] election, leading up to that referendum, a bunch of pro-life American groups advertised ... to try to influence public opinion there," Zuckerberg said. "And we went to the Irish and asked folks there, 'well how do you want us to handle this? You have no laws on the books that are relevant for whether we should be allowing this kind of speech in your election, and really this doesn't feel like the kind of thing a private company should be making a decision on.'"
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