California man runs for governor to test Facebook rules on lying

Adriel Hampton plans to run false commercials in protest at policy of letting politicians lie

A California man has registered as a candidate for state governor purely to run false commercials on Facebook, as a protest against the social network's policy to allow political misinformation in paid advertising.

Adriel Hampton, a San Francisco resident, has already hit the headlines for his protests against Facebook's misinformation policy, after a political action committee (Pac) he set up ran an advert falsely claiming that the Republican senator Lindsey Graham supported the Green New Deal.