Facebook allows U.S.-based political candidates to run branded content on its social networking platforms, without listing the content in its advertising library.

Facebook users have been posting sponsored content paid by a brand to promote a message. Facebook does not make money from these posts and hence does not consider them as advertisement. However, Facebook requires content creators to disclose paid partnerships.

Facebook had previously excluded political entities from using its tools to run branded content campaigns, but that has changed. Influencers are currently allowed to create such content for political campaigns if the posts are disclosed as branded content.

Earleir this week, U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg ran a sponsored content campaign with popular meme accounts on Facebook-owned Instagram.

"After hearing from multiple campaigns, we agree that there's a place for branded content in political discussion on our platforms," a Facebook spokesman told Reuters.

Facebook said sponsored content from political advertisers will not be included in its ad Library, a database maintained to provide transparency around political and other advertising, unless the creator pays to promote the post using the company's advertising tools.

Facebook's decision to exempt politicians' ads from fact-checking coming under fire from some regulators and lawmakers.

The company said on Friday it would require political candidates running sponsored content campaigns to be "authorized", which means they must go through an ID verification process.