In an open letter sent to Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and other top executives, hundreds of Facebook employees said they were unhappy with the company’s decision to allow politicians to say anything they want, true or not, in their ads.

Facebook has taken steps to prevent the spread of disinformation on the run-up to the 2020 U.S. elections, but some employees at the company have decried recent inaction on taking down misleading content from politicians.

“Facebook stands for people expressing their voice,” said the letter. “Creating a place where we can debate, share different opinions and express our views is what makes our app and technologies meaningful for people all over the world.”

That said, the letter goes on to say that free speech and paid speech are different. The people who signed the letter – around 250 of them in total – do not believe politicians should be able to pay for ads containing lies.

“Misinformation affects us all,” they wrote. “Our current policies on fact checking people in political office, or those running for office, are a threat to what FB stands for. We strongly object to this policy as it stands. It doesn’t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy.”

It seems the letter has been circulating internally for about two weeks, although it was published in full for public consumption by the New York Times only on Monday.

The writers of the missive said allowing misinformation in paid ads will only foment more distrust of the company and undo the work that the integrity teams have been doing. Moreover, allowing such ads will do damage all over the globe and not just inside the U.S., said the employees.

The employees offered some fixes to the problem, saying that political ads should meet the standards of any other ads; that it should be easier for readers to distinguish political ads from content not paid for and, among other things, there should be a cap on how much a politician can spend on ads.

“Facebook’s culture is built on openness, so we appreciate our employees voicing their thoughts on this important topic,” a Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement to various media. “We remain committed to not censoring political speech, and will continue exploring additional steps we can take to bring increased transparency to political ads.”

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