Muni Bans Political Ads on Buses, Trains and Shelters

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A Municipal Railway bus leaves a stop on 16th Street in San Francisco. Photo by Bert Johnson/KQED

By Mariana Urban and Bert Johnson, KQED News Fix
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Board of Directors voted Tuesday to ban political ads on its buses, trains and transit shelters, raising concerns of censorship.

Policies like this have been adopted by other transit systems nationwide, including New York City, in response to a recent wave of anti-Muslim ads. The agency faced controversy in 2012 for ads that appeared on buses and transit shelters that said: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel, defeat Jihad.” At the time, transit officials said they could not remove the ads because that could be viewed as a violation of the First Amendment.

Read the complete story at KQED News Fix.

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