Mark Zuckerberg is doubling down on Facebook's controversial political ad policy

Amid criticism of the company's policy on political ads, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is doubling down.

Zuckerberg in a new interview with CBS This Morning on Monday defended allowing political ads to run on the platform even if they contain false information, telling Gayle King that "people should be able to judge for themselves the character of politicians" and "I don't think that a private company should be censoring politicians or news."

This stance stands in contrast to that of Twitter, which decided in October to ban political ads, with CEO Jack Dorsey saying that "political message reach should be earned, not bought." Zuckerberg's defense also comes after a report that Google and YouTube have taken down more than 300 ads from President Trump's campaign due to policy violations, though it's unclear what the violations were.

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Zuckerberg's position on political ads has drawn heavy criticism including from Facebook employees, more than 250 of whom blasted the policy in a letter in October, writing that it "allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy."

But Zuckerberg mostly brushed off this criticism on CBS This Morning, telling the network, "A lot of people have a lot of different opinions." Brendan Morrow