Facebook CEO Zuckerberg reportedly says that US President Trump did not discourage him to ban political ads

Facebook Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview to CBS on Monday that US President Donald Trump did not discourage him from banning political ads on the social media platform during **a secret meeting** in October. The billionaire founder said the discussion centered around “some of the topics that you’d read about in the news around our work”, but added that it was a “private dinner” and declined to share further details of the meeting. [caption id=“attachment_7548241” align=“alignnone” width=“1024”] Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the discussion centered around “some of the topics that you’d read about in the news around our work. Image: Getty[/caption] Zuckerberg had earlier **defended the company's policy to run ads from politicians** containing false or misleading claims, saying that Facebook did not want to stifle political speech. (Also read:  Donald Trump's campaign criticises Google for making it harder for political advertisers to target specific people ) Trump, who has vocally supported political ads, has openly castigated Facebook repeatedly, accusing it of being biased in favour of Democrats. The social media giant has also **faced a barrage of criticism over privacy lapses** , **election-related activity** and its dominance in online advertising, giving rise to calls for more regulation and **anti-trust investigations** .